Arafat urges world effort against terrorism

Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, called this morning for international action to rid the world of terrorism.

Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, called this morning for international action to rid the world of terrorism.

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[Israel is] exploiting the American tragedy and the world's preoccupation with it to escalate its aggression against our land
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President Yasser Arafat

But he also used his speech at an emergency meeting of foreign ministers of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Qatar to criticise Israel.

Mr Arafat told the meeting that Israel was taking advantage of last month's attacks in the United States to launch new offensives against Palestinians.

"The terrible terror actions that struck the United States on September 11th have confronted the world order and international relations with new and unprecedented challenges requiring the world community and the United Nations to pause, reject them and do all that is necessary to stop them,"he said.

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He added that the world community needed to take joint action to rid humanity once and for all of all forms of "dark terrorism, occupation...and hated racial discrimination".

Mr Arafat also claimed Israel was "exploiting the American tragedy and the world's preoccupation with it to escalate its aggression against our land and to re-occupy large parts of our liberated land".