From combined dispatches
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is to chair a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee today, a move that elevates him above other Palestinian leaders during Yasser Arafat’s stay in Paris for emergency medical treatment.
“It will be the first time that a meeting of executive committee has met without Yasser Arafat as its president,” said Bassam al-Sahli, a member of the committee.
Another Cabinet minister, Saeb Erekat, confirmed that Mr. Abbas has been put in charge of the central committee of Fatah, the key political group within the PLO.
Many had written off 69-year-old Mr. Abbas as a political force in the aftermath of his resignation as prime minister last year, following a series of bruising confrontations with Mr. Arafat
Mr. Arafat, suffering from a mystery illness, was flown to France yesterday and was rushed to a military hospital where doctors, including specialists in blood disorders, immediately began examining him.
The health crisis brought the 75-year-old Mr. Arafat out of his sandbagged headquarters compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah for the first time more than two years.
He has been sick for the past two weeks and blood tests revealed he has a low platelet count — a possible symptom of leukemia, other cancers or a number of other maladies.
In Washington yesterday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell urged the Palestinian leader to yield control of security in Palestinian-run areas to a prime minister as a way of furthering peace.
It would give Israel a partner for negotiations, Mr. Powell said in an interview with Egyptian Television and Nile News. Like the Bush administration, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon refuses to deal with Mr. Arafat, the longtime symbol of the Palestinian movement.
“We believe the Palestinian people would be better off with an empowered prime minister who has political authority and who has control of the security forces,” Mr. Powell said.
The Washington Times reported yesterday that Mr. Arafat had approved in principle the creation of a new post — “deputy chairman” of the Palestinian Authority, to which Mr. Abbas would be named.
Although Mr. Arafat prefers to be addressed as president, his formal government title is chairman of the Palestinian Authority.
Mr. Abbas has remained out of the public eye since his resignation in September 2003 after just four months on the job.
But he retained his position as general secretary of the PLO and as deputy head of Fatah, the real power behind the Palestinian Authority.
Mr. Arafat and Mr. Abbas were not on speaking terms for months after the resignation, but a rapprochement was sealed earlier in the week when Mr. Abbas paid a bedside visit to Mr. Arafat in his leadership compound, where today’s PLO meeting will take place.
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