PLO on coup
CANBERRA — In an August 23 statement, the PLO representative to Australia and ambassador of Palestine to Vanuatu, Ali Kazak, said that claims that the PLO had expressed support for the attempted military coup in the Soviet Union were wrong and misleading.
The PLO had set out its position in press statements on August 20 and 21. The PLO's official spokesperson had said that "what is happening in the Soviet Union is absolutely an internal Soviet matter", and he expressed the PLO's wishes that political stability would return to the USSR. Comments attributed to Palestinians hailing the attempted coup reflected their personal views and not those of the PLO.
Kazak said it was not the first time that Israel and its embassies had attempted to mislead world public opinion through false allegations against the PLO and misquotations of President Yasser Arafat and other PLO officials. n