The European Community seems to be inching toward a renewal of contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which it suspended after PLO chief Yasir Arafat threw his support behind Saddam Hussein of Iraq in the Persian Gulf crisis.
French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas, who broke ranks when he met with Arafat in Libya last week, briefed his E.C. colleagues during an informal meeting of the community’s 12 foreign ministers in Luxembourg last weekend.
“There was no criticism,” Dumas said, nor did his fellow ministers accuse him of breaching an E.C. agreement not to talk to the PLO.
In fact, after hearing Dumas, the ministers agreed that a PLO emissary would be received soon in Luxembourg by the E.C.’s political director, Jean-Jacques Kasel.
Luxembourg presently holds the rotating chairmanship of the Council of Ministers of the 12 member states and is the center of E.C. diplomatic activity.
The ministers are preparing, meanwhile, for a discussion with Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy on a possible role for the E.C. in a Middle East peace conference, when they meet at an annual meeting of the E.C.-Israel Cooperation Council here May 14.
Europe’s participation in a Middle East peace conference is “in the nature of things,” said Jacques Poos, Luxembourg’s foreign minister and current E.C. chairman.
In Jerusalem, however, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said he had “doubts” about the E.C.’s participation, because Europe has recently “showed sympathy toward the Palestine Liberation Organization for some reason.”
Shamir made the remarks after meeting with visiting Greek Foreign Minister Antonis Samaras.
In Luxembourg, Poos said the E.C. also plans contacts soon with Syria, “in order to gain maximum support for the American move.”
The 12 ministers will meet on May 11 with the foreign minsters of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which consists of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
According to Dumas, the meeting will give the E.C. an occasion to respond to Arafat’s recent letter to the prime minister of Luxembourg, Jacques Santer, in which he stressed the need for PLO participation in an international conference on Middle East peace.
(JTA correspondent Gil Sedan in Jerusalem contributed to this report.)
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.
