JERUSALEM – Top Palestinian officials abruptly canceled a trip to Paris today to check on the condition of ailing leader Yasser Arafat after critical comments by Arafat’s wife, a spokesman said today.
Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a senior Arafat aide, also said that the critical comments by Suha Arafat “don’t represent our people.”
Rahim spoke after Mrs. Arafat lashed out at Arafat’s lieutenants in a radio interview, accusing them of traveling to Paris with plans to bury her husband “alive.”
Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath had announced Sunday that they would travel to Paris to consult with Arafat’s doctors.
France’s foreign minister described the 75-year-old Palestinian leader’s condition Sunday as “very complex, very serious and stable” but did not give details about his exact state or diagnosis. Asked about reports that the Palestinian leader is in fact brain dead, Michael Barnier replied: “I wouldn’t say that.”
Arafat’s condition remained a mystery Sunday, his fifth day in intensive care at a French military hospital, amid contradictory reports whether he is in a coma.
Two days after the Palestinian envoy to France, Leila Shahid, said Arafat was comatose and “between life and death,” spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh told reporters, “He is not in a coma.”
Abu Rdeneh, who spoke to reporters as he came out of the military hospital, refused to say if he had seen Arafat personally.
Shaath, however, said Arafat was in a coma. “It’s a reversible coma,” he told CNN’s Late Edition. “All his vital functions are fine, OK. There is no brain damage, no liver damage. No damage at all to his vital organs. But we do not know what is the reason for this coma, and when he will come out of it.”
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the Cabinet that Israeli security officials have completed preparations for Arafat to be buried in the Gaza Strip, where his family has a cemetery plot, according to participants at the meeting.
Other burial options include a seaside plot next to his old headquarters in Gaza City, or Gaza City’s “martyrs’ cemetery” east of the city, close to Israel.
Palestinians officials say Arafat has expressed a wish to be buried at a hotly disputed holy site in the Old City of Jerusalem, where the Al Aqsa Mosque compound lies on top of the ruins of the biblical Jewish temples. Israel opposes an Arafat burial anywhere in Jerusalem, fearing it would reinforce the Palestinian claim to the eastern part of the city and become a pilgrimage site.
Associated Press
Supporters of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement demonstrate in support of the ailing Palestinian leader in the West Bank town of Nablus on Sunday.
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