Athens presses for lifting of Arafat siege
Greece yesterday renewed its call on Israel to lift its military siege of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the parliamentary caucus of the ruling PASOK party sent a letter to the presidency of the European Parliament and the speakers of national parliaments declaring their «revulsion and anxiety over the bloodbath in the Middle East and the fact that President Yasser Arafat is being held hostage by the Israeli army.» Foreign Minister George Papandreou flew to Luxembourg for an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers on the issue. Government spokesman Christos Protopappas said that Papandreou had been pressing the EU’s Spanish presidency for such a meeting. On a visit to Cairo on Tuesday, Papandreou met with Arab League President Amr Moussa, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher and Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Shaath. He had also spoken on the telephone with his German and Israeli counterparts, Joschka Fischer and Shimon Peres, respectively, as well as US Secretary of State Colin Powell. The Greek minister was testing the limits of how far Greece could go in declaring support for Arafat, while broadening the limits of EU action without breaking ranks. He wanted to gain the support of the EU partners and the tolerance of Washington for a diplomatic initiative, even if this was without the official stamp of the EU. A large part of central Athens was paralyzed yesterday when the third demonstration by pro-Palestinian demonstrators since the weekend snarled up traffic for many kilometers. The protest was made up of several thousand members of a Communist-led labor movement which turned a protest against government economic policy and social security reform into an anti-Israeli march. They marched through Athens to the US and Israeli embassies – the latter lies on Kifissias Avenue about three kilometers from the city center. Today, the youth movement of the Left Coalition has scheduled a protest at the Israeli Embassy at 6 p.m. The government spokesman also condemned «the attack on Greek citizens» after Israeli troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets at several thousand peace activists who tried to break the cordon and enter Ramallah, where Arafat is under siege. There were three members of the Greek Parliament among the marchers.
