CLAMART, France (AFP) - Three of Yasser Arafat`s top lieutenants were due in Paris on Monday to visit the ailing Palestinian leader, who was battling for his life in hospital, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said.
Barnier said Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei, acting Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) chairman Mahmud Abbas and foreign minister Nabil Shaath were expected in the French capital to visit the 75-year-old Arafat.
The French foreign minister`s statement was confirmed by Tayeb Abdelrahim, the head of Arafat`s office, who added that the trio could meet with French President Jacques Chirac during their trip.
Information about Arafat`s precise condition continued to be very sparse on Sunday, with Barnier describing it as "very serious and stable".
A spokesman for the medical service of the French army said earlier that Arafat`s condition remained unchanged in the military hospital on the southwestern outskirts of Paris where he has been in a coma since Wednesday.
Shaath told CNN that Arafat condition remains stable.
"He is in a coma, but it is a reversible coma. All his vital functions are fine, okay. There is no brain damage, no liver damage, no damage at all in his vital organs," he said.
A member of the PLO executive committee said that Qorei and Abbas were making the trip as they were frustrated at the lack of information on the state of Arafat`s health.
Only Arafat`s wife Suha, his nephew Nasser Al-Qidwa and the Palestinian envoy to France Leila Shahid have been allowed to visit him to date.
"All the information they are receiving is from Suha and they want to see the situation with their own eyes," the PLO source said.
Meanwhile Israel, which has refused to sanction Arafat being laid to rest in Jerusalem, said it was making preparations for his burial in Gaza.
With Arafat hovering between life and death in France, Qorei and Abbas grabbed the initiative at a series of top-level meetings in his now vacant shell-battered West Bank headquarters by drawing up plans for a new era.
Qorei, who is at the helm of the Palestinian Authority in Arafat`s absence, chaired a meeting of the national security council before joining a meeting of the dominant Fatah faction, presided over by Abbas.
On Saturday, Qorei held talks with representatives of all the main armed Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, where all parties agreed on the need for a united front if Arafat fails to recover.
Speaking after the national security council meeting, negotiations minister Saeb Erakat said there had been agreement on a security plan for the Palestinian territories but provided no details.
"Prime minister Qorei briefed the council on the deliberations with the factions in Gaza and all the steps we need to take to restore law and order," Erakat told reporters.
"It was decided that the security council will support the implementation of our security plan to achieve law and order in the West Bank and Gaza and to end the chaotic and lawless situation."
Fears that Arafat`s death could be the trigger for an outbreak of lawlessness are particularly acute in Gaza, where armed militants have clashed with security forces on a number of occasions in recent months.
With Qorei striving to ensure stability on the security front, Abbas is emerging as the chief player in the Palestinian political fold.
A source inside the Fatah meeting said that members of the central committee had agreed on the need for the faction to present a united front behind Abbas.
"It is important that Fatah puts out a unified image and is active everywhere in order to ensure that things go smoothly," he told AFP.
If Abbas can cement his control among the decision-makers of Fatah and the PLO, it could galvanise the moribund peace process. While Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and US President George W. Bush have snubbed Arafat, Abbas was a guest of both during his brief tenure as prime minister last year.
Barnier, who plans to meet with the Palestinian leaders Monday afternoon, said he would deliver the same message he conveyed to Arafat during a June meeting, that quick reform of the Palestinian Authority was urgent.
Meanwhile, Arafat`s wife despatched a key Palestinian official to the West Bank with a message for the leadership concerning the health of her husband and its political consequences.
Suha, who has been at her ailing husband`s bedside since he was flown to Paris on October 29, sent the message in the hands of former Palestinian security minister Mohammed Dahlan.
Members of the Palestinian delegation in France said the message deals with "the evolution of (Arafat`s) health" as well as "the consequences of his absence on the political scene" in the occupied territories.
In the event of his death, Sharon has already vowed that he will not accede to his old enemy`s desire to be buried in Jerusalem and would rather see him laid to rest in the Gaza Strip.
Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz told the Israeli cabinet that the army were preparing for Arafat`s burial in Gaza, making arrangements for mourners from Arab countries which do not recognise Israel to access the territory via Egypt.
11/07/2004 - 22:50 GMT - AFP