Palestinian presidential candidate Mahmoud Abbas canceled a campaign stop planned in Jerusalem, saying Israeli security arrangements would have embarrassed him, a campaign official said yesterday.
Abbas had been tentatively scheduled to travel to Jerusalem yesterday to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, hold a rally and tour the Old City.
PHOTO: AP
The campaign official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel wanted to provide Abbas a large security detail, concerned that Jewish extremists might attack him.
Abbas decided on Wednesday that being surrounded by Israeli security forces during a stop in front of his own people would have been embarrassing, the official said.
Instead, Abbas planned a campaign stop in Beir Naballah, a Palestinian town on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
Israeli police spokesman Gil Kleiman said no request had been received for Abbas to enter the city.
Abbas on Thursday declared that he hoped peace negotiations with Israel could resume soon after the winner of tomorrow's vote is declared on Monday.
Abbas said he viewed the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, as a potential partner in such peace talks. Earlier this week, Abbas irritated the Israeli government by referring to Israel as "the Zionist enemy."
The emolient words, which were welcomed by the Israeli government, came as Abbas and the other six candidates toured the West Bank and Gaza campaigning for tomorrow's election, the first for a Palestinian leader since Arafat was elected in 1996.
Speaking at a press conference in Nablus, a volatile city in the West Bank which suffered badly from an Israeli invasion ordered by Sharon two years ago, Abbas said: "After the elections, we will start negotiations. Ariel Sharon is an elected leader and we will negotiate with him. We will put the road map [the peace agreement drawn up by the UN, the US, the EU and Russia] on the table and say that we are ready to implement it completely."
Serious negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians are unlikely until Sharon completes his planned withdrawal of soldiers and Jewish settlers from Gaza in the summer.
Palestinians attending rallies on Thursday, though enjoying the novelty of the election, were pessimistic about the chances of lasting peace and were divided about whether Palestinian militants should cease operations against Israel.
Abbas has been trying to secure a ceasefire agreement from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but the two militant groups -- both of which are boycotting the election -- have stepped up rocket and mortar attacks on Israel over the last week. They claim they are responding to Israeli attacks.
While polls indicate that Abbas will win 60-65 percent of the vote, he needs a big turnout to secure the kind of mandate that will help him face down Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The same polls put Mustafa Barghouti, an academic and human rights campaigner, in second place, on about 20 percent.
Barghouti, addressing students at Birzeit University outside Ramallah on Thursday, said voting for Abbas would be voting for a continuation of the old system whereas he promised to clean up democratic institutions, the judicial system and the economy.
He described the call for Hamas and Islamic Jihad to stop their attacks as "a mistake" by Abbas. "To expect there to be a complete ceasefire while the other side [Israel] keeps shooting is unrealistic," he said.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS