GENEVA TALKS Boycott by P.L.O.?

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33883, 1 July 1975, Page 17

GENEVA TALKS Boycott by P.L.O.?

r.v Z Pr«»» 4s»n—Copyright; BUDAPEST. June 30. I A leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation has said that it will boycott a Geneva peace conference if it was held on the basis of a 1967 United Nations Security Council resolution on theMiddle East. Mr Khaled Fahoum, president of the Palestine National Council, has also rejected the Israeli suggestion for a federal solution to the Palestine issue. In Budapest to prepare the ground for the establishment of a permanent P.L.O. mis-, sion in the Hungarian capital, Mr Fahoum asserted that the Security Council' resolution was unacceptable because it treated the Palestinians “merely as a refugee

issue.” No solution was pos-, sible as long as the Palestin-1 ians’ right to self-determina-. tion. and to the establish- j ment of an independent; State, was denied, he said. Of the Israeli proposal for' a federated territory inhabited by Palestinians with-i in the framework of the Israeli State. Mr Fahoum said: "This formula would only! establish a different kind of occupation. How could such a Palestinian State be independent if it were divested of its own foreign policy' and army? (. “However, representatives of the Palestinians are ready I to discuss at any time the establishment of a State; which, amid genuinely demo- 1 cratic conditions, would j a-sure equal treatment and »aual rights to the nationalities living in it.” H