Arabs Outraged by Ruling on Arafat : U.S. Violating Its Obligations, U.N. Chief Says

WASHINGTON —  The State Department’s decision to block the visit of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to the United Nations revived accusations Sunday that Washington is meddling in the affairs of the international organization in violation of a 1947 agreement.

Francois Giuliani, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, said in New York that Perez de Cuellar has asked the organization’s legal counsel to review the State Department’s denial of a visa for Arafat. Giuliani said that Carl Fleischauer, a West German jurist, is expected to recommend to Perez de Cuellar by today whether the United Nations should attempt any legal action on the issue.

Action ‘Incompatible’

Late Sunday, Perez de Cuellar criticized Washington’s action as “incompatible with the obligation of the host country” to the world body. “This would be unfortunate,” he added, when the recent meeting of the Palestine National Council in Algiers “provides fresh opportunities for progress toward peace in the Middle East.”

Several critics of the State Department’s decision earlier in the day charged that it violates the 1947 accord establishing the U.N. headquarters in New York. In that agreement, the United States declared that it would not impede the progress of persons seeking entry into the United States to conduct U.N. business.

Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, wanted the visa so that he could address a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, which is scheduled to begin debate Thursday on Palestinian questions.

“We definitely will not allow the United Nations to be transferred into the State Department or any other American policy-making body,” said Nasser Kidwa, spokesman for the PLO’s U.N. observer mission in New York.

Bush Avoids Issue

President-elect George Bush, returning to Washington from a Thanksgiving holiday in Maine on Sunday, appeared to distance himself from the decision, which was made by Secretary of State George P. Shultz.

“He was not consulted. That was a State Department decision,” Steve Hart, a Bush spokesman, told reporters aboard Air Force Two. Asked if Bush supported the move, Hart said he had no direct comment from Bush on the situation.

Hart said, however, that the move was “an Administration decision” and added that Bush “has been a loyal supporter of the Administration.”

Representatives of the Arab League planned to meet in New York today to determine whether and how they would seek to get the scheduled debate on Palestinian issues transferred from New York to the European offices of the United Nations in Geneva.

Shift Would Be Unprecedented

Such a shift would be unprecedented. Some observers of the international forum also believe that a last-minute switch of the forum to Geneva would be extremely costly and logistically difficult, especially since representatives are due back in New York on Dec. 7 for a scheduled address by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

But Ambassador Clovis Maksoud, the Arab League’s U.N. representative, said such obstacles should not stand in the way.

“The political, moral and diplomatic consequences of Shultz’s decision far outweigh the financial burden” involved in shifting the debate, Maksoud said. He added that the scheduled Dec. 1 debate “is amenable to postponement for a very short while” if necessary.

Sees Support for Shift

Maksoud predicted that a proposal to shift the General Assembly session to Geneva for the Palestinian debate would win majority support.

But the Reagan Administration’s latest move to crack down on the PLO’s U.N. activities could be overturned in court, as happened in another case earlier this year.

In March, the Justice Department ordered the PLO’s U.N. observer mission closed, citing an anti-terrorism law passed earlier by Congress. After a group of American attorneys sued the United States for breach of the U.N. headquarters agreement, a U.S. District judge in June ruled that the anti-terrorism law did not supersede the 1947 accord, thereby preventing the closure.

In that case, the United Nations joined the suit as a friend of the court. But Washington attorney James Abourezk, chairman of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said Sunday that unless the United Nations goes to court as a plaintiff, the State Department’s decision on Arafat may be more difficult to overturn.

Sees Even Stronger Case

Hasam Abdel Rahman, director of the Washington-based Palestinian Affairs Office, expressed the view that if the United Nations challenges the Arafat decision in court, the issue may favor the PLO even more strongly than did the Administration’s move to close the PLO mission. In that earlier case, the Administration moved to close a premises that is within the United States. In this current case, the Reagan Administration has moved to directly hinder the functioning of the international organization, Rahman said.

“This is a challenge to the United Nations, legally speaking. It was the secretary general who asked for (Arafat’s) visa.”

PLO Wouldn’t Go to Court

Rahman said that the PLO would not participate directly in any legal action, adding, “We don’t accept the jurisdiction of U.S. courts.”

Noting that Bush has remained distant from the decision, Rahman added, “we hope he will” overturn the decision when he takes office Jan. 20.

The State Department’s decision was hailed Saturday within the American Jewish community and is not expected to meet any opposition on Capitol Hill. Several Senate leaders, speaking Sunday on NBC’s TV program, “Meet the Press,” praised the move.

“The PLO has members . . . who are engaged actively in terrorism, and as long as that organization does I don’t think they should be allowed to speak at the U.N.,” said Louisiana Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, one of three Democrats campaigning to replace Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) as Senate majority leader.