Speech by Chairman Yasser Arafat at the Signing of the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum
September 4, 1999
(simultaneous translation from Arabic)
Mr. Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt, His Majesty King Abdullah of the
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Mr. Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel,
Mrs. Madeleine Albright, the U.S. Secretary of State, ladies and
gentlemen,
I would like to thank President Mubarak for hosting this ceremony to sign
the agreement to implement the outstanding clauses of the Wye Agreement
between the PLO and the government of Israel. In this respect, we would
like to express our deep appreciation of the constructive role that has
been played by Egypt under the leadership of President Mubarak and his top
aides, who have expressed their full support to the peace process in the
region. I would like also to extend my thanks to President Clinton and to
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright for the efforts that have been done
by the United States as a guarantor of the peace process and to put the
peace process back on track. It is a new occasion to go ahead within the
significant role of the United States and the role and the efforts done by
His Majesty King Abdullah, and the support that we have had from the
European community, from Russia, from China, from Japan, from friendly
countries, from the United Nations. It is with the help of all those that
this ceremony is being held and the signing is taking place. On this
occasion I would like to remind you of the role that was played by the
late King Hussein, may his soul rest in peace, in achieving the Wye River
Agreement and in supporting the peace process in the region.
Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, the signing of this memorandum
tonight represents a complement to the peace process and to move forward
to implement all the outstanding clauses and points. We have no time to
waste and we have no chance to waste any more chances. It is an ongoing
hope now for us to maintain the pace of the peace. We respect our
commitments and implement them, and we implement all our commitments in
the agreements, and we will continue our efforts to maintain the
supremeness in the interests of all people and safeguarding the peace
process, and we express our interest to go on forward to reach the final
status settlement based on the UN Resolution 242 and on the basis of land
for peace, and to build our independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem
being its capital, to solve the problem of the Palestinian refugees
according to resolutions of the international legitimacy.
Now, as we are ready to implement the Wye Memorandum, we will be seeing in
a few coming days the PNA takeover of additional lands of the Palestinian
territories, to open the safe passage between the Gaza Strip and the West
Bank, and we will be seeing too the release of hundreds of Palestinian
prisoners. We would like to try to stress the need to stop all the
settlement activities, the land expropriation and house demolition - all
those have been stressed in our previous and former agreements that we
signed together. The commitment to the peace process is very significant
and important because it supplies the appropriate atmosphere to achieving
progress towards the permanent status negotiations and to build confidence
by implementing all the agreements signed, based on the Declaration of
Principles between the PLO and the government of Israel.
We have succeeded with our partner the late Yitzhak Rabin and with Shimon
Peres in the first years that followed the signing of the Oslo Agreement,
the Taba Agreement, and the Cairo Agreement as well, to express a good
mood of friendship and partnership, Palestinian and Israeli, and we have
proved that this partnership is very important, based on mutual respect
and commitment to signed agreements and combatting enemies of peace on
both sides. We have succeeded in establishing a strong infrastructure for
maintaining peace - the peace of the brave - in our region.
I would like here to reiterate the commitment of the PLO and of the PNA
and of the Palestinian people in the peace agreements. We hereby extend
our hand to Mr. Barak as our main partner in the peace process, the peace
of the brave, and we tell him: We are ready to resume the process of
building the Palestinian-Israeli partnership for the sake of peace, and we
are ready to continue to help maintain continuous cooperation between us
to build the peace of the brave and make it reality. This is the real
challenge that is facing both of us. Let us work together in order to
achieve it, and let us work together in order to improve our capability to
make peace the basic and fundamental ground of our daily life.
Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, more than three years ago this city
in Egypt witnessed an international summit, when dozens of world leaders
met to stress the unity of the world against terror and their support of
the peace process. Today we meet again on this important occasion to
reiterate the same meanings and the same goal, which is to lead the peace
process to its final destination by means of achieving a just and a
long-lasting peace in the region on all tracks, including the Syrian and
the Lebanese tracks. Thank you.