Cairo ‘Barely’ Held Arafat’s Ceremony
Zaman
11.13.2004 Saturday
Due to a lack of organization, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s funeral
ceremony ended as fiasco in Cairo yesterday.
A Finnish Representative, an Arab Foreign Minister and top levels of
a Turkish delegation including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and opposition Republican People’s Party
(CHP) leader Deniz Baykal as well as Organization of Islamic Conference
(OCI) Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Islamoglu had trouble entering the
tent set up for the ceremony. After a hustle, the dignitaries were
finally let in. Delegates from Germany, Malaysia and Armenia missed
the ceremony altogether due to heavy airport traffic.
Slovak Foreign Minister Eduard Kukan, who was visiting Turkey, was also
included in the Turkish delegation to Cairo. The Palestinian Ambassador
to Ankara, Fuat Yasin, also missed the funeral ceremony. Yasin
expressed his sorrow saying, “This is a big scandal. This is such a
bitter thing.”
While Turkish top levels were lucky ones to gain entrance to the
ceremony, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fisher missed the ceremony,
as his plane was kept waiting in the air for an hour. Similarly,
Armenian delegation also missed the ceremony due to airport traffic.
The Finnish Representative, meanwhile, was not permitted to enter
the ceremony since he “did not have an identity tag”.
When the Egyptian protocol, caught unprepared by the funeral, forgot
accreditiation, protocol officials of guest delegations and their
chief bodyguards were not let into the ceremony. World leaders in
the procession who had followed Arafat’s casket for nearly 400 meters
were surprised when they were told, “the ceremony is over here.” Some
leaders waited in the cars while others chatted in groups.
11.13.2004 Cumali Onal Cairo