Palestinian President Yasser Arafat urged US President George W. Bush to re-engage in the Mideast peace process in his second term, and a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Min-ister Ariel Sharon called Bush's re-election a victory for a "relentless fight against terrorism."
Arafat, undergoing medical tests in Paris for an unidentified ailment, welcomed Bush's re-election in a statement issued by a senior aide, Mohammed Rashid, at his headquarters in Ramallah.
"President Bush has shown a clear will to solve the conflict on the basis of a two-state solution," Arafat said, referring to plan to create a Palestinian state.
Arafat said he hoped Bush "will be more engaged in solving this conflict and that the US administration would be engaged at the highest levels to achieve this goal."
Bush's strong support for Sharon's policies during his first term endeared him to the Israeli government, but created friction with Palestinian officials.
The Palestinians charged him with unfairly favoring Israel, and resented his decision to boycott Arafat for allegedly supporting militant activities.
Bush's win is a victory "to the American people who decided to choose democracy, hope and a relentless fight against terrorism," Sharon's top adviser Raanan Gissin said.
"It's an even bigger victory for the people of the Middle East, where there will be another four years of a president determined to bring the people of this forsaken region a ray of hope, freedom and ... democracy," he said.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said a decision by Bush to step up efforts to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians would serve America's own interests in the region.
"We hope that the American administration will be more engaged in solving the Arab-Israeli conflict and specifically the Palestinian-Israeli conflict which represents the center of tension and instability in the area," he said. "We will cooperate with the American administration to achieve this goal."
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
Two US Navy pilots were shot down yesterday over the Red Sea in an apparent “friendly fire” incident, the US military said, marking the most serious incident to threaten troops in over a year of US targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Both pilots were recovered alive after ejecting from their stricken aircraft, with one sustaining minor injuries. However, the shootdown underlines just how dangerous the Red Sea corridor has become over the ongoing attacks on shipping by the Iranian-backed Houthis despite US and European military coalitions patrolling the area. The US military had conducted airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels at the
Pulled from the mud as an infant after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and reunited with his parents following an emotional court battle, the boy once known as “Baby 81” is now a 20-year-old dreaming of higher education. Jayarasa Abilash’s story symbolized that of the families torn apart by one of the worst natural calamities in modern history, but it also offered hope. More than 35,000 people in Sri Lanka were killed, with others missing. The two-month-old was washed away by the tsunami in eastern Sri Lanka and found some distance from home by rescuers. At the hospital, he was
MILITANTS TARGETED: The US said its forces had killed an IS leader in Deir Ezzor, as it increased its activities in the region following al-Assad’s overthrow Washington is scrapping a long-standing reward for the arrest of Syria’s new leader, a senior US diplomat said on Friday following “positive messages” from a first meeting that included a promise to fight terrorism. Barbara Leaf, Washington’s top diplomat for the Middle East, made the comments after her meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus — the first formal mission to Syria’s capital by US diplomats since the early days of Syria’s civil war. The lightning offensive that toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8 was led by the Muslim Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in al-Qaeda’s
RSS