Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) met late Thursday over the veteran leader's deteriorating health conditions.

Yasser Abed Rabu, member of the PLO executive committee, said the PLO had received international guarantees that Arafat will be able to return to the Palestinian territories after medical treatment in France.

Rabu told reporters that "these guarantees encouraged us to take our decision that Chairman Arafat will travel early Friday to France."

He said after the medical treatment, Arafat will return to his headquarters in the West bank city of Ramallah. "I believe that the US administration will respect its obligations, as well as the international sides that contacted the Israeli side who guarantees that Arafat will be allowed to return," the official said.

Rabu said PLO's executive committee, as well as the Palestinian cabinet and the Palestinian national security sector, will always be on high alert during Arafat's absence.

"We will do the obliged requirements while Arafat is absent as there won't be any political vacuum and we will stay in a continuous consultation with him during this period," Rabu said. Arafat, who has taken ill for the past two weeks, will be airlifted to Paris via the Jordanian capital of Amman early Friday. His doctors said he suffers from low count of white blood cells.

Source: Xinhua