PALMA DE MALLORCA, Spain -- Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat met with Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky Monday for more than three hours of secret talks possibly related to a PLO-Israeli prisoner-of-war swap.
At a hurried news conference following the meeting, Arafat told reporters he wanted European governments to pressure the United States into withdrawing its support from Israel.
'How can the United States be so adamant in its backing for the rights of 1,500 inhabitants on the Falkland Islands and at the same time ignore the rights of 5 million Palestinians?' the PLO leader said.
He made no comment on a report the PLO had held its first direct talks with Israel.
Kreisky was not available for comment after the meeting, held under tight security at the chancellor's holiday villa at Costa del Blanes, near the provincial capital of Palma de Mallorca.
The PLO leader, who had arrived earlier from Algiers, was expected to leave Tuesday for Tunis.
A PLO spokesman said before the talks it was likely Arafat and Kreisky would discuss arrangements for an exchange of prisoners between Israel and the PLO.
'It is possible that they talk about the exchange of prisoners,' said PLO Madrid bureau spokesman Mahmoud Hallah. 'In any prisoner-of-war exchange a third party gets involved.'
The discussions are 'private, and a continuation of the good personal contacts Mr. Arafat has had with Mr. Kreisky,' Hallah said.
The meeting came one day after Newsweek magazine reported the PLO and Israel are holding the first direct negotiations since the 1964 founding of the Palestinian organization.
Newsweek said the Jewish state, seeking the release of eight soldiers captured by the PLO during Israel's June 6 invasion of Lebanon, was holding talks with the Palestinians in Austria. The PLO, in turn, wants the release of thousands of its fighters captured during the 74-day war.
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin's administration assigned a politician 'known for his dovish views to deal with PLO representatives in Europe to secure the release of the Israeli soldiers,' Newsweek said.
The magazine said the talks were being held under Kreisky's auspices but did not name the Israeli politician or specify when the negotiations started.
An Austrian government official in Vienna would neither confirm nor deny the Newsweek report. A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Vienna, however, said his government conducted negotiations on swapping prisoners of war only with the authorities of Syria, Lebanon and other Arab governments.
Kreisky was one of the first Western government leaders to meet with Arafat. At the forefront of a drive by European leaders to get the PLO recognized as the legal representative of the Palestinians, Kreisky also has urged the PLO to recognize Israel's right to exist.
Arafat last week informed the Spanish government he wished to visit Kreisky, foreign ministry spokesman Inocencio Arias said.
Arias denied Spanish officials planned to meet the PLO chairman during his 24-hour stay at Mallorca but the island's civil governor and the mayor of Palma greeted Arafat on arrival at Palma airport.
Spain, with traditional close ties to the Arab world, is the only western European nation yet to recognize Israel -- founded in 1948.
Austrian officials said the Arafat-Kreisky meeting was set up after the chancellor arrived in Mallorca last Wednesday for a winter vacation.