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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 July 1999 Issue No. 438 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 July 1999 Issue No. 438
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters Mapping out the region
By Graham UsherWith his new government more or less in place, Ehud Barak has opened his account with a veritable diplomatic blitz. In the space of six days, Israel's new prime minister met with President Hosni Mubarak in Alexandria, Yasser Arafat in Gaza, King Abdullah in Akaba and Turkish President Suleiman Demirel in Jerusalem. And on Thursday morning Barak is due to touch down in Maryland for a six day trip to the US during which he will meet with President Bill Clinton no less than four times. Barak is also scheduled to stop-over in London on his return to Israel for a meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The official Israeli spin is that this frenzied diplomacy is necessary for Barak to "map-out" the positions of the key players in the region prior to "charting" his course on the various tracks of the Middle East peace process. But there are already enough signs to indicate which is Barak's preferred course. There are also signs that he will meet a minimal -- and certainly uncoordinated -- Arab response to it.
Apart from assurances that Jordan would not be left out of the loop in the final status negotiations with the Palestinians on borders, water, refugees and Jerusalem, the main thrust of Barak's midnight meeting with King Abdullah on 13 July was the peace process with Syria. The Israeli leader was reportedly keen to hear a report on Chief of the Royal Court Abdul-Karim Karbariti's recent meetings with President Hafez Al-Assad and other senior Syrian officials.
Eager to play the role of mediator, Jordan's new king relayed "positive signals" from Damascus, said a spokesperson for Barak. It is not clear what these signals are save one -- the Syrian leader has reportedly agreed "in principle" to return to Israel the remains of Eli Cohen, hanged in Damascus in 1965 for espionage.
The Syrian track also topped the agenda at Barak's brief meeting with Demirel on 14 July. Recent reports in the Turkish press had expressed concern that the new Israeli leader's apparent rapprochement with Syria could come at the expense of Ankara. Barak almost certainly allayed such fears, since he is no less committed to the military agreements forged between Israel and Turkey in February 1996 that were his Labour and Likud predecessors.
But -- according to accounts in the Israeli press -- Barak's preferred tack is to keep the military alliance with Turkey at its current level for fear that an "enhancement" would worry the Arabs. If and when progress in the peace process occurs, however, Israel "will strive to make" its military axis with Turkey "the cornerstone of regional defence arrangements between several neighbouring countries, including Syria, and at a later stage possibly even Iraq," writes Haaretz's diplomatic correspondent, Aluf Benn, on 14 July.
The same emphases on "regional security" and Syria are likely to dominate Barak's numerous meetings in the US. According to the State Department, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, has already pencilled in a trip to Damascus in August to prepare the ground for a resumption of negotiations between Israel and Syria, if not "from the point they left off" in February 1996, then at least at some point agreeable to both parties.
On the Palestinian front, Barak is expected to urge Washington to take a back-seat in the final status negotiations rather than maintain the role of guarantor and arbiter it assumed during Binyamin Netanyahu's term. Barak will also sound out the Americans on his proposal that the 1998 Wye agreement with the Palestinians be "combined" with the final status talks on Jerusalem, water and borders. The current US position is that Wye should be implemented as it stands. But Barak could get his way on this -- he has been getting his way on everything else.
After the scolding he received from Israel for daring to suggest that Palestinian refugees should be "free to live wherever they like", Clinton has made generous amends. On 13 July -- in a letter to the American Anti-Defamation league -- he reiterated the "long-standing US view" that "the issue of Palestinian refugees must be dealt with and resolved by the parties themselves".
