Britain and EU urged to cut aid to Arafat
By Francis Elliott, Deputy Political Editor
(Filed: 09/12/2001)
BRITAIN and other European states were last night urged by a leading adviser to President Bush to cut all aid to the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
The EU payment of around £110 million a year to the Palestinian Authority was helping to support a "corrupt regime" that would never deliver peace, said Richard Perle, the head of the Pentagon defence policy board.
Mr Perle, upon whom President Bush has lavished praise in recent weeks, called on the EU to abandon its support for Arafat in the wake of the latest terrorist outrages in Israel.
He said: "The justification for funnelling money to a corrupt regime was that it would somehow assist in producing peace. It is now very clear that is not doing that and I think anyone with any sense recognises that it will not do that. The rationale is gone."
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