WASHINGTON, Aug 9: The head of a Palestinian cabinet delegation has warned that removing Yasser Arafat would increase chaos in the Middle East despite strong US efforts to force the Palestinians to elect a new leader.

“We all know that the alternative to Arafat is chaos,” said head of the delegation, Saeb Erekat, while referring to the US demand for electing a new leader.

“That cannot be done,” said Erekat, who is also the chief Palestinian negotiator for talks with Israel and the United States.

Removing Arafat, he said, would stir “civil strife among the Palestinians” and cause some groups to “send more suicide bombers into Israel.”

“And that’s what Israel wants so that tomorrow Israeli leaders can stand up and say we cannot deal with these people — who are killing and destroying us,” said the Palestinian minister.

Erekat is currently visiting Washington with two other Palestinian ministers for talks with US officials. Although Secretary of State Colin Powell, who met the Palestinian delegation on Thursday, did not comment on Erekat’s statement, a spokesman for his department said the Palestinians must elect a new leader.

Referring to President George W. Bush’s June 24 speech, State Department’s spokesman Phil Reeker said: “The Palestinian people should choose new leadership through democratic, open, free and fair elections.”

But Powell, who spoke briefly with reporters along with Erekat outside the State Department after his talks with the Palestinian delegation, did not offer comments on this controversial issue.

Instead, he began his briefing with a conciliatory note, telling the Palestinians that a UN representative will be visiting the Middle East this weekend to review the humanitarian situation in the region.

He said the United States was “anxious to get some specific actions started, especially with respect to security.”