RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, April 8 (UPI) -- Crown Prince Abdullah pledged Saudi Arabia's full support to the Palestinian people in a telephone conversation with their leader Yasser Arafat, the Saudi Press Agency said Monday.
Abdullah, on a private visit to Morocco, assured Arafat, who has been besieged for the past 10 days in his battered Ramallah headquarters, the "Saudi government and people stand by their brotherly Palestinians in their crisis," the agency said.
The consultation came before U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived in Morocco on Monday, the first leg of a tour aimed at halting Israeli-Palestinian hostilities.
Powell is to meet with Abdullah and Moroccan King Mohammed VI. He then is to go to Egypt for talks with President Hosni Mubarak before traveling to Madrid to meet his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov, as well as U.N. and EU officials, including the EU's foreign policy representative, Javier Solana.
