Monday, April 17

JEFF SALLOT
The Globe and Mail; With a report from Canadian Press
Friday, April 14, 2000

Beirut -- After four days of controversy, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's Middle East tour got on to a more even footing yesterday with a visit to the Lebanese Prime Minister to talk about peacekeeping and a speech on the virtues of Canadian society.

But the issue of Palestinian refugees, and whether he had offered to accept 15,000 of them into Canada, still dogged him, with the Palestine Liberation Organization urging him to resist any Israeli pressure to accept refugees as immigrants to Canada.

Mounir Makdah, a PLO leader at a large refugee camp near Beirut, said Israel wants Canada to accept refugees for political reasons, to ease the Palestinians' push for a homeland.

"Rather than offering Israel an out, we want Canada to put pressure on the invaders to give us back our nation. Peace is impossible until all of the refugees return," Mr. Makdah told an Arabic-speaking reporter travelling with Mr. Chrétien.

Mr. Makdah also suggested that leaks to the media from Israeli officials, suggesting that Canada would take in refugees, were deliberate and part of Israel's political manoeuvring.

Israeli newspapers and international news services on Wednesday quoted an unnamed source in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's office as saying Mr. Chrétian had offered to take 15,000 refugees -- a report that both parties insisted was erroneous.

Mr. Chrétien and Mr. Barak emphasized yesterday that their discussion on Sunday about the refugees had been in general terms only.

"The idea was put on the table that maybe certain international actions could be taken to reduce the suffering and to help to solve it," Mr. Barak told a press conference in Jerusalem yesterday.

"We didn't go into any details and it was not the time to discuss or negotiate any kind of commitment from the Prime Minister of Canada," he said.

In Beirut, Mr. Chrétien said he would not even discuss the possibility of Canada accepting refugees until there is a final peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

He noted that Canada leads a multilateral working group on the future of the refugees, and that is why the issue comes up at his meetings in his 12-day Mideast tour.

Lebanese Prime Minister Selim Hoss told reporters he and Mr. Chrétien had discussed the issue of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, of which there are about 350,000. The two also discussed Israel's plans to withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon in July.

Mr. Chrétien reiterated Canada's willingness to help implement a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians, including possibly providing peacekeepers to help maintain law and order in southern Lebanon when the Israelis withdraw. Peacekeepers would have to be prepared to use lethal force there, Canadian Major-General Cameron Ross warned earlier this week.

Later yesterday, Mr. Chrétien addressed a meeting of about 1,000 Lebanese Canadians in Beirut's sea-front Phoenicia hotel, newly reopened after being extensively damaged in the civil war.

He praised the Canadian model of society as a living example of "unity in diversity."