PLO Charter Null and Void, Arafat Says : Tells Mitterrand 1964 Challenge to Israel’s Existence Is Invalid

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said today that the 1964 charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which challenges Israel’s right to exist, is null and void.

Arafat made the statement after talks with French President Francois Mitterrand, who pressed him to clear up contradictions between the charter and the PLO’s decision six months ago to recognize Israel’s right to exist.

“I was elected on a political program founded on the basis of two states,” Arafat told French television. “As for the charter, I believe there’s an expression in French c’est caduque (it’s null and void).”

French commentators said it was the first time the PLO chairman had publicly declared his movement’s founding charter invalid.

But they added that it was only a first step toward removing lingering doubts about the PLO’s intentions and that skeptics will wait to see whether Arafat would seek full endorsement of the move by the Palestinian National Council.

Highest-Level Trip

Contradiction between the hostile language of the charter and the olive branch offered Israel by the Palestinian movement last November dominated the first day of Arafat’s visit to France, his highest-level trip to the West.

After Arafat’s 90-minute meeting with Mitterrand, an official statement said: “Mr. Mitterrand noted that the continued existence of the PLO charter adopted in 1964 was contradictory in important respects to the political program adopted on Nov. 15, 1988.”

“It would be appropriate, in his view, to make things crystal-clear,” the presidential statement said.