Jordan Times
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Remarks attributed to King on
Arafat inaccurate — Royal Court
AMMAN (JT) — A Royal Court source on Tuesday said remarks attributed to His
Majesty King Abdullah appearing to propose that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat
yield authority were “inaccurate.”
“News agency reports of a New York Times
interview quoting King Abdullah calling on Yasser Arafat to look into the
possibility of abdicating are inaccurate,” a Royal Court official told Agence
France-Presse. “His Majesty did not mention the issue of abdication, by near or
by far ... this is an issue that concerns the Palestinians alone,” the official
said, adding: “Jordan does not interfere in other people's affairs.” King
Abdullah, asked to comment on criticism by US Secretary of State Colin Powell of
Arafat's leadership, did not refer to the latter's post but rather his position
on the peace process, the official insisted.
According to The New York Times' interview, published Tuesday, the Monarch said
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.” Powell said during a weekend
visit to Jordan that Arafat had “played a negative role” and that “in order to
move forward Arafat needed to cede authority over the security services,”
according to a State Department official.
In The New York Times interview, King Abdullah said: “I know there are
discussions inside the Palestinian leadership of this idea of him [Arafat]
becoming president and giving the prime minister more authority.”
“If this allows the Palestinians to get beyond the obstacle that they are facing
now with the United States and Israel, then that's something the Palestinians
need to sort out and sort out quickly,” he said.
Meanwhile, the King told the London-based Al Sharq Al Awsat daily that the
US-imposed sanctions on Syria might be harmful to the Jordanian economy.
“We have always said that progress is contagious. If there was progress in the
Syrian economy, it will benefit Jordan's economy. The opposite is correct, of
course, when sanctions were imposed on Iraq, our economy sustained severe losses
over a decade,” the King said.
“We believe that economic sanctions on Syria will help advance neither our
national economy nor that of the entire region.”
Washington announced last week that it had imposed sanctions on Syria on grounds
that it supported terrorism and failed to close its borders to insurgents
looking to fight US forces in Iraq.