Report: Jordan's king urges Arafat to weigh stepping aside
By The Associated Press
AMMAN - Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat should take "a long look in the mirror" and decide whether to step aside in the interest of his people, Jordan's king said in an interview published Tuesday, providing a rare indication of Arab frustration with the Palestinian leader.
In an interview with The New York Times conducted Monday, King Abdullah II also said Iraq's next ruler should be a "tough guy" with a military background capable of holding the shattered country together.
Israel and the United States often have pushed for Arafat to step aside, and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has harshly criticized the Palestinian leader in recent days. Powell said Arafat "continues to take actions and make statements that make it exceptionally difficult to move forward," and he suggested Palestinian and other Arab leaders should persuade him to make way for a more flexible successor.
In a televised speech to mark Nakba (catastrophe) Day earlier in the week, Arafat, quoting from the Koran, called on the Palestinian people to "terrorize the enemy."
But even though Arab leaders have been frustrated by Arafat many times over the decades, they rarely discuss who should be in charge in a fellow Arab nation.
Jordan, a key regional mediator in the Palestinian-Israeli crisis, also is in a delicate situation: more than half its population is Palestinian and it must balance a friendship with the United States with rising Arab frustration over U.S. policies toward Israel and Iraq.
Pressed in the Times interview about whether he agreed with Powell's criticism of Arafat as an obstacle to peace, Abdullah was quoted as saying that, "I think Arafat needs to have a long look in the mirror to be able to see whether his position is helping the Palestinian cause or not."
Earlier Monday, Abdullah had told reporters on the sidelines of final day of the World Economic Forum in Jordan that Palestinian leaders "need to get their act together" so others can help them.
He said then there are "three or four elements of leadership that are competing with each other" and that their lack of coordination is costing them.
In the interview with the Times, Abdullah also described the sort of person he felt should run Iraq after the June 30 transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi civilian government.
"I would probably imagine... somebody with a military background who has experience of being a tough guy who could hold Iraq together for the next year," Abdullah was quoted as saying.
The Times said Abdullah indicated some older officers might not be tainted as are the Saddam loyalists on Washington's wanted list.
"There were a lot of heroes; there are strong community leaders who are products of the Iraq-Iran war" of the 1980s, he said. "They are national heroes that do appeal to the Iraqi street." |
