Yasser Arafat must step up his efforts to make the Palestinian Authority more democratic in order to get the Middle East peace process back on track, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Tuesday.
Straw's comments came as delegates began to arrive at the Foreign Office in London for a conference on Palestinian issues, despite an Israeli government ban that prevented the in-person participation of a Palestinian delegation from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Straw acted as host to delegates from the United States, the United Nations, the European Union, Russia, Jordan and Egypt to discuss the reform of the Palestinian Authority. Most Palestinian representatives will address the meeting via a video hookup from the territories, AP reported.
U.S. Assistant Secretary William Burns was representing the United States.
As the conference was about to begin, Straw acknowledged that the ban on the Palestinian delegation was unhelpful, but insisted it should not distract attention from the principal issues.
British officials said the meeting is meant to highlight reforms in the Palestinian administration as a means of undercutting Israel's attempts to hold the peace process hostage to security issues. Within this framework, Straw is expected to warn that there can be no progress towards a final peace settlement until Israel pulls its forces out of West Bank towns.
On the ground, Israeli troops arrested Tuesday morning a leader of the military wing of Hamas as well as 15 other Palestinians overnight in the West Bank, Palestinian security sources said.
Soldiers arrested 32-year-old Salman Daraghmeh, the leader of the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades in Tubas located in the northern West Bank, the sources said.
Reports said Daraghmeh had escaped several assassination attempts, and his house in the village 15 kilometres south of Jenin, had already been demolished.
Israeli troops in the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem also dynamited the house of Iyad Massar, one of four members of Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades arrested overnight, Palestinian security sources said.
Eleven other Palestinians were arrested in Tuilkarem, Nablus, Qalqilya and Ramallah, Israeli military sources said. (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
