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Israel might deport or arrest Arafat

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Saturday urged Europe to distance itself from Yasser Arafat, charging that the Palestinian leader is an obstacle to the peace process, as he prepared to make a trip to Europe beginning this weekend.

“It is a major mistake to keep up contact with Arafat because he is undermining Abu Mazen’s government,” Sharon told Britain’s right-wing Daily Telegraph newspaper. Sharon is to travel to London on Sunday.

“Arafat still controls the larger part of their armed forces, and part of the money, and he has got all those telephone calls from leaders, mostly from Europe,” Sharon told The Daily Telegraph.

“Every act of this nature only postpones progress. Most European countries are doing that. They are undermining Abu Mazen,” Sharon said. Sharon is expected in Washington at the end of the month for meetings with US President George W Bush.

Meanwhile, Israeli diplomatic sources said Tel Aviv could deport or arrest Arafat if he holds up his prime minister’s efforts to implement the peace ‘road map’.

“Israel conveyed to Washington that if Arafat continues to undermine Abu Mazen, we will reconsider his location and status,” a source said. “By status we mean immunity.” “Sharon is working on obstructing the road map,” Arafat told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where he has been blockaded by Israel after waves of suicide bombings last year.

Meanwhile, Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan called for elections to the central committee of Fatah. “Elections must be organised for the central committee, whose members were elected 13 years ago, so that no one has joined this body since the two intifadas,” he said, referring to the Palestinian uprisings, the first of which ended in 1993 and the second began in September 2000.

On Friday, the Israeli army demolished a three-storey Palestinian house in Rafah near the border with Egypt. —AFP/Reuters

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