PLO to Weigh the Issue of Statehood

Palestine Liberation Organization ruling bodies will meet in April to decide whether Palestinians will declare an independent state on May 4, an advisor to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat said Saturday.

“Several PLO bodies will be called in April, most probably in the first week of April, to announce the Palestinian decision regarding declaration of a state,” said Nabil abu Rudaineh.

He said the meetings would be held in Palestinian self-rule areas.

Arafat’s most senior aide and other PLO officials said the PLO’s ruling Executive Committee would call for a meeting of the Palestinian Central Council to announce plans regarding statehood.

The Central Council serves as the intermediate body between the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee and the Palestine National Council, the PLO’s supreme decision-making body.

PLO officials said the decision on whether to declare statehood on May 4 would come after Arafat concludes consultations with Arab states, Europe and the U.S.

Arafat will consult with President Clinton on the issue of a Palestinian state during his visit to Washington on March 23. The U.S. has advised Arafat to delay such a declaration, Edward Walker, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, said recently.

Arafat has said he is entitled to declare a state on May 4, the date set in interim Palestinian-Israeli peace deals for the completion of a final peace treaty.

But Palestinian officials have said Arafat would consider delaying declaration of a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip if Europe and the U.S. promised to recognize Palestinian statehood at a later date.

“Arafat is now studying the declaration issue and is carrying out consultations with all parties which signed the 1993 Oslo deal to see what is best done regarding the statehood announcement,” said a Palestinian official who declined to be identified.

Also on Saturday, Palestinian officials welcomed remarks by U.S. envoy Dennis B. Ross describing Jewish settlement activity as “very destructive to the pursuit of peace.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman, David Bar-Illan, refused to comment on whether Ross’ remarks marked a tougher U.S. policy on the settlement issue.

Bar-Illan said Israel would continue settlement expansion in the West Bank and Gaza Strip “to accommodate the natural needs and the natural growth” of Israelis living there.

In a telephone interview from Washington, Ross said Friday: “We see settlement activity as very destructive to the pursuit of peace precisely because it predetermines and prejudges what ought to be negotiated.”

Palestinians say settlement activity violates the 1993 Oslo accord. They want the U.S. to suspend loan guarantees to Israel if Netanyahu does not freeze construction of settlements.

The settlement debate is among the issues that have stalled talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Netanyahu’s government faces a general election May 17.