Both sides wide apart

Press, 1 July 1983, Page 6

Both sides wide apart

NZPA-Reuter Bahrain Heavy fighting was reported yesterday between opponents and supporters of the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, in eastern Lebanon as the head of the mutiny in his Fatah guerrilla group rejected any compromise. Lebanese radio reports said that Palestinians fought each other across the fertile sweep of east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley as Fatah rebels attacked positions held by Mr Arafat’s supporters. Mr Arafat, as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation is expected to preside over a crisis meet-

ing of the P.L.O. executive committee in Tunis within the next two days. Two Kuwaiti newspapers quoted the rebel leader, Colonel Abu Musa, as rejecting any mediation effort to reconcile his differences with Mr Arafat. “I do not believe in mediation because it means compromise ... the homeland needs no compromise,” he was quoted as having said in an interview. The rebels have demanded a collective P.L.O. leadership and a harder line and armed struggle against Israel. Mr Arafat went to Tunis after his expulsion from Syria. He had accused the

Damascus Government of supporting the Fatah rebels, a charge Syria has denied. He is expected to visit Saudi Arabia in the next few days. A senior P.L.O. official said that the organisation had asked King Fahd to arrange a meeting between Mr Arafat and President Hafez Assad of Syria to settle their differences. The official said that Syria had not yet responded to the proposal. In Lebanon, Beirut radio said that shell-fire and small arms exchanges between the Palestinians were taking place around a village on the main highway to Damascus.