In London , the Chairman of the Foreign Relations committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) had appealed to the United States to either stay neutral on the issue of the organisation's struggle with Israel, or to recognise the PLO. Mr Khalid Al Hassan was in London to attend a seminar called by the Islamic Council for Europe to publicise Arab demands for the return of Jerusalem to Arab rule.

SYNOPSIS: The senior PLO leader Mr Khalid Al Hassan was interviewed by Mr Adal Malek at the London seminar on the status of Jerusalem. Mr Hassan denounced the United States-sponsored camp David peace agreements between Egypt and Israel as an attempt to impose a peace on the Middle East which took account only of short-term great power interests. Their main interest, he said, was the security of oil supplies. He went on to specifically challenge the United States to either take a truly neutral stand on the issues surrounding the establishment of Palestinian homeland -- or go all the way and recognise the PLO on equal terms with Israel.

On Monday (3 December) Mr Hassan made what has been interpreted as the PLO's most unequivocal statement of their willingness to abandon its armed fight against Israel in return for a Palestinian state. He said that Palestinians would use peaceful means to achieve their aim of a secular democratic state in what is now Israel of they are allowed to set up a mini-state of their own alongside.

Mr Hassan said that if the Palestinians created a mini-state of their own, they would try to get the their own, they would try to get the Israelis to shed their Zionism. Mr Hassan said the Palestinians equate Zionism with religious persecution.