Arab League urges int''l probe over Arafat''s death

(With photos) CAIRO, July 17 (KUNA) -- The Arab League Council called here Tuesday for an independent and neutral UN committee to look into the death of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
The call was aired by the council during a just-concluded extraordinary meeting at the level of permanent delegates.
It was held under the chairmanship of Chief of the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry's Arab Department Ambassador Jamal Al-Ghanim, in the presence of Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al-Araby.
The council emphasized that the probe committee should include efficient figures from Arab and international organizations.
It called on the Palestinian National Authority to provide all information reached by a Palestinian probe committee in order to find the secret layers of Arafat's death.
It also urged France in particular to come up with information on the cause of the Palestinian leader's demise.
The chief of the Arab League told a joint news conference with Al-Ghanim following the meeting that efforts should continue to know how Arafat died.
He added that the council came up with a recommendation including an international probe committee on the subject against the backdrop that Arafat was killed with radioactive Polonium.
"We will call on the UN to form this committee and we will then assess if we can go to the UN Security Council or the UN General Assembly," he said.
For his part, Al-Ghanim stressed the significance of today's meeting, which focused on an Arab committee to be entrusted with working out the legal dossier of Arafat's death, as a prelude to taking the case to the UN.
He added that the outcomes of the meeting would be referred to the next meeting of Arab foreign ministers to be presided over by the State of Kuwait in September.
The Palestinians are seeking to form an international committee to investigate the circumstances of Arafat's death almost eight years ago.
The Qatari-based al-Jazeera news channel had shown a documentary saying that some radioactive Polonium was discovered in the things that Arafat used shortly before he died.
Arafat became the chairman of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1969, and he was a popular leader not only among the Palestinian people, but among the Arabs.
Arafat, who signed historic peace agreements with Israel, was later considered by right-wing Israeli leaders as an obstacle for peace. Israel and the United States boycotted him until he died in France in 2004. (end) sm.mfm.mt KUNA 172116 Jul 12NNNN