February 20, 2002	Wednesday	Zilhaj 7, 1422

CAIRO, Feb 19: Egypt on Tuesday asked Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman to postpone his planned visit here next week after he compared Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to Adolf Hitler.

Amid Arab outrage over the comments reported in an Israeli newspaper, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said that “because of our commitments, we have asked the Czech prime minister to postpone his visit to Egypt”.

The visit had been scheduled for Feb 28.

Maher did not elaborate but a foreign ministry official said the postponement had been requested in protest at the remarks attributed to Zeman in Monday’s edition of the Haaretz newspaper.

Egypt’s request was made before Zeman denied the remarks in Prague.

The comparison published in the daily Haaretz caused outrage amid the Palestinian leadership and the Cairo-based Arab League while triggering a diplomatic rumpus with the European Union, which Prague is seeking to join.

Amr Mussa, the secretary general of the 22-member Arab League, said that if the remarks were accurate, they “went beyond the limits of what was reasonable and acceptable”.

Zeman’s remarks show “he is not aware of the situation and that he has not heard the two (Israeli and Palestinian) sides”, Mussa told reporters.

“If the Czech prime minister’s remarks are exact, they are in contradiction with those in Arab countries and with the general spirit in European countries, which are trying to reach a balanced and just solution” in the region, he said.

The Palestinian Authority’s minister of information, Yasser Abed Rabbo, also denounced Zeman’s reported remarks.

In Prague, Zeman issued a statement of denial.

“I would like to stress that I never compared Arafat to Hitler,” Zeman said, adding that Haaretz had distorted his statement by merging two sentences into one.—AFP