Palestinian negotiator quits as Abu Mazen forms new team

By ERIC SILVER in Jerusalem and SA'ID GHAZALI in Gaza

Saeb Erekat resigned yesterday as minister in charge of negotiating with Israel after the new Palestinian Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas, left him out of the team for his first meeting with Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister.

Although the normally eloquent Mr Erekat declined to comment publicly, he is reported to have been furious that Mr Abbas (generally known by his nom de guerre of Abu Mazen) preferred to be accompanied to Saturday night's by the Speaker of the Palestinian legislative council, Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala), and his new security chief, Mohammed Dahlan.

The more dovish Palestinian politicians welcomed Abu Mazen's choice as a sign of his determination to turn a new leaf and distance himself from Yasser Arafat, who remains the President. They dismissed Mr Erekat as "Arafat's yes man", and interpreted his exclusion as part of the power struggle between the two leaders.

One official, who declined to be named, told the Independent that Mr Erekat was never an independent decision-maker. "He preferred to negotiate in front of the television cameras," he said. "He travelled to many countries, but achieved nothing. Abu Mazen included him in the cabinet as a decoration. He never meant to give him a pivotal role."

Colleagues said Mr Erekat, a 48-year-old political science professor who took his PhD at Bradford University, had felt increasingly marginalised after Mr Abbas took office at the end of last month. Mr Erekat had served as a senior Palestinian negotiator since the 1991 Madrid peace conference.

The new Prime Minister first dropped Mr Erekat as Local Government Minister, a position he had enjoyed since 1994, then reluctantly appointed him minister of state in order to appease the beleaguered President. His omission from this weekend's team was the last straw.

Sympathetic Palestinian officials quoted Mr Erekat as protesting that the delegation did not represent the "internal" leadership, those who endured the Israeli occupation before Mr Arafat and "external" figures like Abu Mazen and Abu Ala returned from Tunis after the 1993 Oslo accords. He has often accused the former exiles of feathering their own nests at the expense of the Palestinian poor.

Abu Mazen asked Mr Erekat to freeze his resignation and said he would not accept it for another week. Palestinian sceptics said that he might yet think again, though it would be harder without losing face once news of the resignation became public.

One fellow minister defined it privately as a "Palestinian resignation." In other countries, he said, when a minister quits he rushes to the nearest microphone. When a Palestinian minister quits, he unplugs his telephone – and waits for people to beat a path to his door.

While local leaders of Mr Arafat's Fatah movement did not spring to Mr Erekat's defence, they did criticise Abu Mazen's readiness to meet Mr Sharon while Israeli tanks are still rolling into Palestinian towns.

Hatem Abdel Qader, a Jerusalem member of the Fatah steering committee, said they feared Mr Sharon would exploit the meeting for public relations purposes when he flies to Washington today for talks with President George Bush. "We are not against who is in the delegation," Mr Abdel Qader said, "but we are against the idea of holding a meeting at a time when Sharon never stops incursions and assassinations."

Israeli officials believe Abu Mazen shared these reservations. It was only pressure from the American Secretary of State, Colin Powell, that induced him to meet Mr Sharon, they say.