BEIRUT (PL).—Yasser Arafat, president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) remains in an intensive care unit in France although he is no longer in a coma, affirmed Nabil Abu Rudeina.

Abu Radeina, Arafat’s main advisor, was speaking from the Percy military hospital in the Clamart district on the outskirts of Paris, where the Arab leader is a patient.

"Arafat is not in a coma," stated the advisor, according to some French newspapers.

Abu Radeina did not indicate whether he had personally seen the 75-year-old leader, whose health is being referred to by the media as critical, but commented that he was stable.

He said that the Palestinian president has undergone medical checks whose results would be announced in the next few days. According to the advisor one has to wait until then to know what is happening as "to date, nobody can diagnose his situation."

For his part, Nabil Shatt, PNA foreign minister, informed the CNN network that Arafat remains stable and reiterated that the state of coma is reversible.