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Around the World

Palestinians seek U.S. support for statehood

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has sent his deputy, Mahmoud Abbas, to Washington for another round of talks with U.S. officials regarding the declaration of an independent state.

The Clinton administration is seeking a one-year extension of the Oslo peace accords, scheduled to end May 4, out of concern that a unilateral declaration of statehood on that date would sink the fragile peace process.

Hassan Abdul-Rahman, the Palestine Liberation Organization's Washington representative, told The Associated Press that Abbas had met with U.S. Mideast envoy Dennis Ross. More meetings were expected once Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat arrived in Washington last night.

"The American position regarding several issues will be sent in a letter to President Arafat," the PLO diplomat said. He said the United States is considering holding a three-way summit in Washington in July - after Israel elects its next prime minister - to reinvigorate the peace process.

The State Department had no comment yesterday.

Other assurances sought by the Palestinians include a commitment to get Israel to abide by its peace commitments and a U.S. condemnation of Jewish settlement in the West Bank, said Ahmad Abdul-Rahman, the Palestinian Cabinet secretary-general. He is not related to the Washington diplomat.

He said Palestinian negotiators would not accept open-ended peace talks and want a U.S. understanding that statehood is a right and not up for negotiation.

"We want the United States to propose a deadline," for statehood, Ahmad Abdul-Rahman said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said a Palestinian state would pose a security threat to Israel and has threatened to annex West Bank territory if Arafat declares statehood on May 4.

The United States and the European Union have urged Arafat to back off his May 4 pledge.

Europe has recognized the Palestinian right to statehood and has called for negotiations to wrap up within a year. A similar recognition from the United States would help Arafat satisfy those demanding statehood now.

The Palestinians will receive the U.S. letter before the Palestinian Central Council decides on April 27 whether to unilaterally declare independence May 4.

Ahmad Abdul-Rahman said the Palestinians would seek a statement in the letter describing settlements as destructive to peace and a pledge to get Israel to unfreeze the Wye River land-for-security accords.

Under that agreement, Israel promised to withdraw from 13 percent more of the West Bank by the end of January in exchange for a Palestinian campaign against Islamic militants.

Lower-ranking U.S. officials have verbally criticized Israel for its policy of expanding West Bank settlements.

The Jewish settler population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip grew by 7 percent in 1998, according to government figures published yesterday.

The Central Bureau of Statistics said 172,000 Israelis live on land Israel captured from Jordan and Egypt in the 1967 Mideast war. Settler leaders have said the number is closer to 200,000.

Police investigating market bombing

Hospital officials said two men hurt in the blast Saturday had severe eye injuries, but refused to comment on TV reports that both have been blinded permanently.

Fourteen of the 39 people injured when the bomb exploded in a busy shopping street in Brixton - mostly people hit by nails and flying glass - remained hospitalized yesterday.

They included a 23-month-old boy who underwent surgery to have a four-inch nail taken out of his head.

"We removed nails from faces, heads, legs and arms. There were pieces of glass. There were some very nasty injuries," said Karen Swinson, the nurse in charge of emergency admissions to King's College Hospital.

Officials said the bomb did not appear to be the work of the Irish Republican Army, which has declared a cease-fire and which traditionally claims responsibility for attacks.

Speculation on the motive ranged from a reprisal for NATO bombing in Yugoslavia, a racial attack, a drug feud, a protest by animal rights activists or the work of a lone assailant, possibly trying to copy a man jailed last week for attacks on banks and supermarkets.

George Jones, a Brixton street trader, said "someone" handed him a blue bag as lost property. Inside was a square device that exploded just after he had dumped it 15 yards away by a wall.

Kate Hoey, a government minister in the Home Office, which is responsible for law and order, said she would very surprised if the attack was racially motivated.

"It was so indiscriminate that it might make you feel that that was not the reason," Hoey said during a tour of the site yesterday. "All sorts of people, all ages, all colors, were there. There is no evidence to show a racial motive at the moment."

But Lee Jasper, a black rights activist in Brixton, the scene of race riots in the 1980s, said he suspects the bomb was linked to the 1993 slaying of a black teen-ager, Stephen Lawrence, whose killing caused a national outcry.

A report released in February into the bungled police investigation said London's Metropolitan police force was riddled with racism. None of the five white suspects in the case has been successfully prosecuted.

"What we could potentially be witnessing is a backlash against the huge amount of coverage given to the Stephen Lawrence case," Jasper said. "A nail bomb in the Brixton market could only be intended to inflict the maximum damage possible to the black community."

04-19-99