PARIS, May 18: Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher says that “only Yasser Arafat can control the situation in Palestine”, and that any indications to the contrary are nothing more than Israeli disinformation and distortion.

“The Palestinian Authority is inconceivable without Yasser Arafat as its president,” he says. In an interview with French daily Le Figaro, Mr Maher said he cannot conceive of the Palestinian Authority being headed by anybody but President Arafat, and that recent press speculations of his possible departure were nothing but the result of Israeli attempts at degrading his stature as chief of the Palestinian Authority. “The Israelis have attempted to create panic within the Palestinian Authority. They’ve quoted names. They’ve said: ‘we think that this person, or another, would be the best successor to Arafat’. But all they’ve done is create an unhealthy atmosphere.”

The Egyptian foreign minister, who spoke with Figaro’s Claude Lorieux upon his return from Beirut, insisted that “in the end, it’s Yasser Arafat himself who set things straight by saying he would pesonally see to it that he would undertake reforms at the Authority in conjunction with the legislative council.

“Also, by recognizing his errors before the legislative council and announcing elections, he managed to give short shrift to the Israeli manoeuvres.”