Farouk Kaddoumi, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s so-called foreign minister, will be officially invited to Switzerland by Swiss Foreign Minister Pierre Auber, it was reported here Friday by Swiss Radio. Kaddoumi had been invited officially last December but since his visit was to have taken place several days after Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan’s visit to Berne, Kaddoumi said he would delay his own visit.
The Swiss, who are not too eager to receive him, did not repeat the invitation in spite of strong pressure from the pro-Arab lobby here. Nevertheless, Kaddoumi came to Berne last April but met only with lower echelon Foreign Ministry officials.
Now, however, following PLO chief Yasir Arafat’s visit to Vienna and President Carter’s declaration last week that the Palestinian issue was comparable to the civil rights movement in America, the Swiss Foreign Ministry is finding it difficult to avoid an official invitation to Kaddoumi. The PLO official was in Paris a week ago seeking to arrange for an official visit there for Arafat. So for there has been no word on whether he was able to gain approval for such a visit.
CORRECTION: Issue No. 149 of the Daily News Bulletin was incorrectly dated Thursday, August 2. The correct date was Friday. August 3.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
