Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has urged US President George W. Bush and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, to help end the Israeli aggression against the Palestinians, a Palestinian official said on Monday.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a top aide to Arafat said that Arafat has sent an urgent message to President Bush, urging him to personally interfere to end "the serious military Israeli escalation" in the Palestinian territories.
"The situation here in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is like on the top of a volcano that threatens the whole area of the Middle East," Arafat wrote in the letter to Bush, said Abu Rudeineh.
Arafat asked Bush to personally interfere in ending Israeli aggression, and renewing the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiationsthat leads to the implementation of the signed agreements.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that Arafathas also sent an urgent letter to Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, calling on Spain and the EU to interfere as soon as possible to endwhat Arafat described the "escalation and aggression against the defenseless Palestinian people."
(Xinhua News Agency January 22, 2002)
