RAMALLAH, 24 September — Palestinian President Yasser Arafat yesterday rejected Israel’s terms for lifting its siege of his battered offices in the West Bank town of Ramallah as Washington and the world community increased pressure on the hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Arafat’s rejection of Israel’s demand for a list of names of 250 people holed up with him also came as the UN Security Council debated the crisis in New York and Greece announced a delegation from the four main diplomatic players was heading to the region in a bid to calm the crisis.

"We and President Arafat reject all Israeli conditions," chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told reporters after briefing the Palestinian leader about his earlier meeting with army officers at Israel’s Beit El base just outside this West Bank town. "The Israeli side asked us to take the names of the people in (the compound). We reject this (demand) from the Israeli side."

It was not only the first meeting between the two sides aimed at ending the four-day siege, but it was also the first time that Arafat had been allowed to receive colleagues from outside his shattered compound. "I saw the situation is very bad and very dangerous inside," Erekat complained in a phone conversation with AFP, referring to fears the building could collapse.

Arafat delivered a defiant speech by telephone yesterday to some 3,000 Palestinian students who gathered at Bethlehem University to demonstrate their support. "The situation is dangerous, but the people can face all dangers.

The Palestinian people has seen more dangerous situations than this and won," Arafat said from his besieged headquarters. Other signs of support for Arafat took shape as Palestinians in Gaza and Arab East Jerusalem shut up shop or skipped class in line with a strike call, while the 22-member Arab League in Cairo appealed for UN help.

A European Union official said the Palestinian leadership was refusing to give Israel the list it was demanding because it did not want a "second Bethlehem," referring to a deal to end a previous Israeli siege which sent Palestinian fighters into exile and Arafat’s popularity plunging.

In New York, UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan warned Israel yesterday that its battering away at the Palestinian Authority was "a bankrupt policy" that bolstered extremists and would never end Middle East violence. Addressing an emergency session of the Security Council, Annan also denounced Palestinian bombings as "morally repugnant" acts that ate away at hopes for a political solution in the Middle East.

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not going to be resolved by military might alone, or by violent means of any kind," Annan told the Council. "A policy based on forcing the other side to capitulate is a bankrupt policy. It is not working and it will never work. It only encourages desperation. It weakens moderates and strengthens extremists."

Washington, meanwhile, appeared to be toughening its stance as the Greek government announced that delegates from the United States as well as the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, were headed to the region yesterday. The United States had told Sharon directly that his siege of Arafat was "running contrary" to efforts to forge peace in the Middle East, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

RAMALLAH, 24 September — Palestinian President Yasser Arafat yesterday rejected Israel’s terms for lifting its siege of his battered offices in the West Bank town of Ramallah as Washington and the world community increased pressure on the hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Arafat’s rejection of Israel’s demand for a list of names of 250 people holed up with him also came as the UN Security Council debated the crisis in New York and Greece announced a delegation from the four main diplomatic players was heading to the region in a bid to calm the crisis.

"We and President Arafat reject all Israeli conditions," chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told reporters after briefing the Palestinian leader about his earlier meeting with army officers at Israel’s Beit El base just outside this West Bank town. "The Israeli side asked us to take the names of the people in (the compound). We reject this (demand) from the Israeli side."

It was not only the first meeting between the two sides aimed at ending the four-day siege, but it was also the first time that Arafat had been allowed to receive colleagues from outside his shattered compound. "I saw the situation is very bad and very dangerous inside," Erekat complained in a phone conversation with AFP, referring to fears the building could collapse.

Arafat delivered a defiant speech by telephone yesterday to some 3,000 Palestinian students who gathered at Bethlehem University to demonstrate their support. "The situation is dangerous, but the people can face all dangers.

The Palestinian people has seen more dangerous situations than this and won," Arafat said from his besieged headquarters. Other signs of support for Arafat took shape as Palestinians in Gaza and Arab East Jerusalem shut up shop or skipped class in line with a strike call, while the 22-member Arab League in Cairo appealed for UN help.

A European Union official said the Palestinian leadership was refusing to give Israel the list it was demanding because it did not want a "second Bethlehem," referring to a deal to end a previous Israeli siege which sent Palestinian fighters into exile and Arafat’s popularity plunging.

In New York, UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan warned Israel yesterday that its battering away at the Palestinian Authority was "a bankrupt policy" that bolstered extremists and would never end Middle East violence. Addressing an emergency session of the Security Council, Annan also denounced Palestinian bombings as "morally repugnant" acts that ate away at hopes for a political solution in the Middle East.

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not going to be resolved by military might alone, or by violent means of any kind," Annan told the Council. "A policy based on forcing the other side to capitulate is a bankrupt policy. It is not working and it will never work. It only encourages desperation. It weakens moderates and strengthens extremists."

Washington, meanwhile, appeared to be toughening its stance as the Greek government announced that delegates from the United States as well as the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, were headed to the region yesterday. The United States had told Sharon directly that his siege of Arafat was "running contrary" to efforts to forge peace in the Middle East, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

"It is a wonderful gesture," Chibli Mallat said last night. "It is a wonderful message to receive in these very dangerous and violent times." The letter, from the "Coalition of Women for A Just Peace in Israel", speaks movingly of the suffering of the Palestinians in 1982. "Our hearts ache to recall the terrible massacre that took place in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps twenty years ago, which Israeli leaders allowed to take place," it says. "We condemn the brutal murderers of your loved ones and we condemn the leaders who must be held accountable for these war crimes, Ariel Sharon above all."

A Belgian court ruled earlier this year that it could not indict Sharon for the killings but more than 20 survivors of the massacre, whose lawyers include Mallat, are now appealing this decision. Up to 1,700 Palestinians were butchered in the massacre which was carried out by Lebanese militiamen allied to the Israelis. Israeli troops surrounded the camps as the killings took place but were told by their commanders not to interfere.

Sharon was Israeli minister of defense at the time and was forced to resign after the Israeli Kahan commission condemned him and several senior Israeli officers for not preventing the slaughter. The women’s letter recalls how the Palestinians were forced to flee their homes in 1948. "We join you in mourning for those who were killed and maimed (in 1982) and we condemn those who are responsible", it says.

"We hope that you will accept the sincerity of our words and allow us to stand in solidarity with you as we strive to build peace with justice between Israel and Palestine." Muhammad Abu Rudeina, who as a seven-year-old boy saw his father and other relatives murdered 20 years ago, described the Israeli women’s letter as a "moving act" which would greatly encourage other Palestinian survivors who are seeking justice for the deaths of their loved ones.

Mallat said it was the first gesture of solidarity to the camp survivors from Israelis, 20 years after a lone Israeli, Emile Grunzweig, was killed by a hand grenade thrown into a crowd of protesters in Tel Aviv. "We regard Grunzweig as an Israeli who died for Sabra and Shatila," Mallat said. "Now at last, we seem to have got support from Israelis about the terrible crimes against humanity which occurred in Beirut two decades ago." (The Independent)

NEW YORK - UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned Israel yesterday that its battering away at the Palestinian Authority was 'a bankrupt policy' that bolstered extremists and would never end Middle East violence. Addressing an emergency session of the Security Council, called after Israel again laid siege to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's headquarters, Mr Annan also denounced suicide bombings as "morally repugnant" acts that ate away at hopes for a political solution in the Middle East. "The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not going to be resolved by military might alone, or by violent means of any kind," Mr Annan told the council.

"A policy based on forcing the other side to capitulate is a bankrupt policy. It is not working and it will never work. It only encourages desperation. It weakens moderates and strengthens extremists."

While international mediators have laid out a blueprint leading to a Palestinian state within three years as Israel's security concerns are addressed, recent suicide attacks in Israel and the fresh siege of Mr Arafat's Ramallah compound "represent a step in the opposite direction," he said. Rather than make Israel more secure, the destruction of Palestinian civil and security structures triggered mass demonstrations in Palestinian cities and crippled the Palestinian Authority's ability to combat bombing attacks, he said. "In the end there will have to be a political settlement," he said. - Reuters

Speaking in Trenton, New Jersey, Mr Bush said: "I want to see a strong resolution coming out of the UN, a resolution which says the old ways of deceit are gone, a resolution which will hold this man to account."

In Iraq, the ruling Baath party called on the international community to oppose any new UN resolution on disarmament that Washington wants to push through as a prelude to conflict. British Prime Minister Tony Blair was set to release a dossier detailing the threat posed by Saddam and submitting his government's get-tough policy to an emergency debate in parliament today.

He made clear that London and Washington were not prepared to soften their demands for a tough approach to Iraq's weapons programmes. - AFP

NEW YORK - The United States threatened yesterday to veto a draft resolution before the United Nations Security Council calling on Israel to lift its siege of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's headquarters.

"We will not support the adoption of a one-sided text that fails to recognise that this conflict has two sides," the US ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, told a public session of the council. The permanent representative of Palestine, Nasser Al Kidwa, had earlier asked the council to adopt "a clear resolution" demanding that Israel withdraw immediately from Mr Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah.

The draft also demanded that Israeli forces withdraw to positions they held prior to September 2000, the start of the intifada. In its preambular paragraphs, the text expressed concern at the tragic events since September 2000. - AFP

COPENHAGEN - The European Union condemned yesterday Israel's siege of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, saying the Jewish state's retaliation for Palestinian suicide bombings would only escalate the Middle East conflict. "We fear that Israel's retaliation will only escalate the situation further, rather than bring security to the Israeli people," said Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, whose country currently holds the EU presidency.

"The situation is counter-productive both for the security situation and for the political mood in the Palestinian areas," he said, appealing to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to end the siege as soon as possible. The Danish prime minister was speaking after the first session of an Asia-EU Meeting (ASEM) in the Danish capital, focusing to improve relations between the two continents.

"The Danish presidency of the European Union has urged prime minister Sharon to end the Muqataa (Arafat's Ramallah headquarters) siege as soon as possible," Mr Rasmussen told journalists at the Asem summit. Israel must stop the occupation of Muqataa and Arafat must do his utmost to stop terror," he said.

Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson, speaking after the session, said the Middle East situation had become a deadlock, with the international community at a loss over how to break the impasse. "I think that every one of us thinks that you just have to do something and do it quickly, but no-one has an idea what to do and how to do it. It's a deadlock situation," he said.

Mr Arafat's situation, he added, was "awful. He has our full support. We don't see anybody else who can represent the Palestinian people. He is the representative." - AFP

TRENTON (New Jersey) - A top US official said yesterday that German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has "a lot of work to do" to repair ailing ties with the United States, as the White House snubbed his electoral victory.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer pointedly ignored reporters asking whether US President George W. Bush - travelling here for a political fundraiser - had telephoned Schroeder after the chancellor's win. Although Mr Bush frequently offers routine congratulations by telephone, Mr Fleischer curtly said that the US State Department was the appropriate agency from which to seek reaction.

But a senior administration official, who declined to be named, declared that "Chairman Schroeder and his government have a lot of work to do to repair the damage that he did by his excesses during the campaign." Those comments were clearly aimed at Mr Schroeder's Social Democratic Party, which campaigned on blunt opposition to US military action against Iraq. One government minister likened Mr Bush to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

Mr Fleischer brushed aside Mr Schroeder's apology for the Hitler comparison, saying: "It really didn't read like an apology. It read more as an attempt at an explanation. Mr Schroeder apologised last week after Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin was quoted as alleging Mr Bush was using potential action against Iraq as an electoral tool and saying the tactic was reminiscent of Hitler.

"I would like to say how sorry I am that the remarks attributed to the German justice minister may have hurt you," Mr Schroeder wrote to Mr Bush in a letter made public and aired on the ARD TV channel. "The minister has assured me that she didn't say the words attributed to her," Mr Schroeder wrote. The minister resigned yesterday.

Earlier, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denounced the conduct of the campaign, saying it had poisoned German-US relations. "The way it was conducted was notably unhelpful and, as the White House has indicated, had the effect of poisoning a relationship," Mr Rumsfeld told reporters in Warsaw.

Mr Rumsfeld said he would not be meeting his German colleague at a Nato meeting in the Polish capital. - AFP, Reuters

MADRID - A dispute between Spain and Morocco over a deserted Mediterranean islet flared up again yesterday after Rabat cancelled talks at the last minute, alleging Madrid had landed a military helicopter on the island.

The tiny islet, 200 metres off the Moroccan coast, known as Perejil (parsley) in Spain, was at the centre of an international dispute in July when the Spanish military kicked off Moroccan troops at gunpoint, in a crisis which threatened to pit Arab against European states. On Sunday, Moroccan Foreign Minister Mohamed Benaissa abruptly called off his planned visit to Madrid yesterday for talks to heal ties in protest at an alleged landing by a Spanish navy helicopter on the islet, called Leila or Toura in Morocco.

Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio said a Spanish navy helicopter had simply flown close to the island to investigate Moroccan military manoeuvres, but had not landed. "I very much regret that Minister Benaissa will not be making his visit," Palacio said on Antena 3 television. "The Spanish navy did what it had to do, which is monitor whether the status quo (on the island) has been broken."

US Secretary of State Colin Powell helped broker the 'status quo' agreement shortly after the angry confrontation ended in July. Under that deal Morocco and Spain agreed to return the craggy rock to its previously demilitarised status. The latest diplomatic spat came only days before Morocco's parliamentary elections on Friday. Many Spanish media pundits suggested Moroccan Prime Minister Abderrahmane El Youssoufi's government was using Perejil to stir patriotic feeling.

The Moroccan foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday that the alleged helicopter landing was an 'unacceptable' violation of its airspace and territory. In a new statement yesterday, it said a Spanish navy small plane again violated Moroccan airspace early yesterday adding that "such acts have no justification whatsoever".

The small plane, a Cessna, "flew several times over the Moroccan islet of Toura and over Morocco's northern continental area of Oued El Mersa," said the statement carried by the official MAP news agency. The Spanish government denied in a statement yesterday that it had violated July's peace agreement in any way. - Reuters

Khaleej Times, 9/24/02

LONDON - Europeans grappled yesterday with Gerhard Schroeder's election victory, accusing the German chancellor of trying to score political points while fraying ties with Washington over Iraq. Caught in a tight campaign that ended with his re-election on Sunday, the German leader had voiced virulent opposition to any US military action against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, even with United Nations backing.

"It will have a bad effect on the (European Union's) security policy," Italian European Union Affairs Minister Rocco Buttiglione insisted in an interview published yesterday. "We will have to split on this point because it is important that there are no divisions between the United States, the United Nations and Europe over Iraq," Mr Buttiglione told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

A columnist in Britain's Times newspaper said it took "a certain talent" for Mr Schroeder to make an issue of Iraq even though "the chances of the US army requesting that a regiment of panzers be sent to the Middle East were always nil". "While George W. Bush deliberately seeks to inspire 'regime change' in Baghdad, Saddam has accidentally prevented one from occurring in Berlin," wrote the columnist, Tim Hames.

But British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is Mr Bush's most outspoken ally in the campaign against Saddam, tried to play down differences with Germany yesterday. Asked if Mr Blair had been concerned by the anti-American rhetoric from Mr Schroeder's side, a spokesman for the British leader said: "The British government has its position and the German government has its own position." "In terms of his (Blair's) own dealings with Chancellor Schroeder on important international matters, he has always valued that relationship and will continue to engage with the German government in the months to come," he told reporters. The spokesman said the two leaders were keen to meet soon.

For his part, French President Jacques Chirac tried to put aside chilly relations. The two formerly close allies have repeatedly clashed over various subjects, including plans for EU enlargement, since Mr Schroeder first came to power in 1998. "In this decisive period for the European Union, on the eve of a big enlargement and a profound reform of its institutions, our two countries must continue to be engines in the construction of Europe," Mr Chirac said. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi both congratulated Mt Schroeder, each voicing a commitment to good relations with Germany.

But perhaps no country rejoiced more in Mr Schroeder's victory than Turkey did. Relieved that Mr Schroeder came from behind to defeat conservative Edmund Stoiber, newspapers published headlines reading: "Thank you, Germany" and "Turkey got what it wanted". Mr Stoiber had opposed distant EU candidate Turkey's eventual membership in the bloc. - Reuters