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Farouk al-Kaddoumi (also known as Abu Lutef), (born in 1931) is the secretary-general of Fatah's central committee, the chapter of PLO's political department in Tunisia. He is frequently referred to as the "foreign minister" of the PLO.
Farouk Kaddoumi was born near Qalqilyah, later his family moved to Haifa and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War moved to Nablus. For three years in the early 1950s he worked in Saudi Arabia for Arab-American Petroleum Company (ARAMCO). In 1954 he moved to Egypt and while studying economy and politology at the Cairo University, he joined the Baath party.
In 1960 he joined Fatah in the United Arab Emirates. In 1965-66 he worked for the ministry of health of Kuwait but in 1966 was expelled from the country for anti-governmental activities connected with the PLO. By 1969 he became one of key figures in the PLO and after 1973 he headed its political department in Damascus, Syria.
In 1976, Arafat and Kaddoumi met with Meir Vilner and Toufiq Toubi, heads of the Israeli Communist Party, known as Maki party and from which Hadash party eventually sprung up. This meeting led to a close cooperation.
Kaddoumi participated in the activities of Said al-Muraghi (Abu Musa) group, including 1983 mutiny attempt against Yassir Arafat, but switched sides and was assigned to Central Committee of Fatah.
A representative of the "Tunisian guard", Kaddoumi is known for his hardline views. In 1993 he sharply criticized the signing of the Oslo accords with Israel and refused to work in the Palestinian Authority. Nevertheless, Arafat appointed him a director of Palestinian Economic Council for Reconstruction and Development (PECDAR), a body whose members are mostly in the territories, and whose meetings he does not attend.
Upon Arafat's death, Farouk Kaddoumi inherited duties as chairman of the PLO central committee and of the Fatah movement. Kaddoumi said he was open to peace negotiations with Israel, but also ready to pursue armed struggle if they failed. "Resistance is the path to arriving at a political settlement," Farouk Kaddoumi told Hizbollah's al-Manar TV station on November 12, 2004 ([1] (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/500630.html)).
In November 2004, he insisted that the Palestinian goal is Israel's destruction in an interview to Iran's Al-Aram television station: "At this stage there will be two states. Many years from now, there will be only one... [There are] 300 million Arabs, while Israel has only the sea behind it." Khaddoumi said his platform was endorsed by the PLO in 1974. ([2] (http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/breaking_9.html)[3] (http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=390#))
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