Prior to leaving office last week, President Reagan asked Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to impress upon the Palestine Liberation Organization that “it must match moderate words with constructive deeds.”
White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Thursday that the request was contained in a “paragraph reference” within a two-and-a-half-page letter to Mubarak.
Fitzwater would not release the letter to reporters, but said it also “expresses pride in the strengthening of the U.S.-Egyptian partnership over the past eight years,” and affirms U.S. support for Egyptian economic reform.
Fitzwater denied reports that Reagan had sent a letter to the Palestine Liberation Organization.
But he and State Department spokesman Charles Redman confirmed that U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia Robert Pelletreau met again last week with a PLO official.
Pelletreau, the only authorized U.S. channel to communicate with the group, met Jan. 17 with Hakam Balaoui, the PLO’s representative in Tunis, a State Department source said.
Neither Redman nor the source would describe the content of the meeting, although Redman described it as an “informal contact.”
Pelletreau had met Balaoui three weeks before, and the State Department source indicated future meetings were possible.
Last week, in the final days of the Reagan administration, the State Department voiced concern about a comment PLO leader Yasir Arafat made on Jan. 1.
Redman said Thursday that a translation of a tape recording of the remarks quoted the PLO chairman as saying: “Whoever thinks of stopping the intifada before it achieves its goals, I will give him 10 bullets in the chest.”
Redman said “this threat is inconsistent with Arafat’s Dec. 14 renunciation of terrorism.” But Arafat has denied that he threatened anyone.
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.
