Volume 36, Number 6 · April 13, 1989
A Talk with Arafat
By Robert O. Freedman
In mid-February 1989 a group of six senior American specialists on the Middle East, including three former high-ranking US government officials, went to Tunis for three and a half days of intensive talks with high PLO officials, among them Yasser Arafat and Abu Iyad, the second highest ranking official in the PLO, in an effort to determine if the PLO was serious about its newly proclaimed peace initiative, which calls for an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.[*] The members of the group agreed that if they found the PLO to be serious about peace, they would then present their views on how the Palestinian–Israeli peace process could be encouraged. This was one of the few extensive meetings of American Middle East specialists with Mr. Arafat and the other leaders of the PLO to take place; its outcome was, in my view, encouraging.
Feature, 1926 words
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