Papandreou in Cairo
Foreign Minister George Papandreou is to hold talks with Egyptian officials in Cairo today after being forced to postpone a visit to Israel and the West Bank because Israel could not guarantee his safety in a planned visit to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who is under siege in Ramallah. Papandreou is to meet with President Hosni Mubarak and Arab League President Amr Moussa in Cairo today. They will «exchange views on the latest dramatic developments in the Middle East in light of the military siege of President Yasser Arafat in Ramallah and the recent decision by the Arab League summit which resulted in the adoption of the Saudi Arabian plan for solving the Middle East problem,» said Foreign Ministry spokesman Panayiotis Beglitis. Papandreou had informed his Spanish counterpart, who currently presides over the EU’s council of foreign ministers, and US Secretary of State Colin Powell of his intention to visit Ramallah and Powell had agreed with the Greek minister’s plan, Beglitis said. The initiative was aimed «at confirming again our solidarity and support for the Palestinian people, confirming again the role of President Arafat in developments and at the same time presenting once again to the Israeli side the framework of Greece’s and the EU’s Middle East policy,» Beglitis added. He said that Greece had a vital interest in what was happening in the region. «Greece not only has traditional, cultural, political and economic bonds with the Middle East, it has vital interests, because of its geographic proximity to this region, that it has to protect,» Beglitis said. «A broader conflict in the Middle East will naturally have repercussions on the region to which Greece belongs,» he said. Government spokesman Christos Protopappas said that Arafat had responded «with gratitude» to Prime Minister Costas Simitis’s appeal to the international community on Sunday to help guarantee the Palestinian leader’s safety. «Our aim is clear,» Protopappas said. «The cycle of bloodshed must end right away. The Palestinian people have the right to form their own state but the citizens of Israel too have the right to live in security.» Opposition New Democracy party leader Costas Karamanlis met with US Ambassador Thomas Miller and Saudi Arabian Ambassador Abdullah al-Mahdi. «The situation in the Middle East has reached a critical point. If it is not brought under control now, it will jeopardize the stability of the broader region,» Karamanlis said. In the latest pro-Palestinian demonstration in Athens, about 2,000 Greeks and Palestinians marched through central Athens yesterday. Israeli Ambassador David Sasson said at a news conference that his government had no intention of harming Yasser Arafat and that the position of the Greeks was the result of «sympathy or pro-Arab sentiment that exists in this country.»
