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Al-Ahram Weekly 19 - 25 August 1999 Issue No. 443 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 19 - 25 August 1999 Issue No. 443
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters No breakthrough in sight
By Khaled AmayrehPalestinian and Israeli negotiators engaged in intensive discussions this week in an 11th-hour attempt to reach an agreement on the overdue implementation of the Wye River Memorandum.
The two sides, however, are still far from an agreement on a timetable for enforcing the provisions of the memorandum on the ground. They are also divided on a number of sub-issues related to the interim phases of the Oslo Accords.
Saeb Ereikat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said important differences persisted on a whole host of issues, including a timetable for implementation of Wye.
He repeated his accusations that the Israeli government was trying to "reopen the agreement" and "come up with new interpretations of some of its clauses -- all for the purpose of evading the honest and accurate implementation of the agreement."
According to Palestinian sources close to the talks, Israel expressed willingness to finish the implementation of the Wye agreement by mid-January 2000. The sources added, however, that Israeli representatives were still seeking to cajole the Palestinians into accepting a certain "amendment" of the memorandum, whereby parts or all of the third phase of redeployment in the West Bank would be merged with final status talks.
In practical terms, said the sources, the Israeli proposal would reduce the areas of the West Bank slated to be handed over to the Palestinians under the Wye agreement by hundreds of square kilometres. Most of these lands are contiguous to Jewish settlements, and the ostensible rationale behind the Israeli "merge proposal" is that redeployment would effectively bring Palestinians and Jewish settlers into close contact, with the possibility of violence erupting.
Faced with an adamant Palestinian rejection of this proposal, on the grounds that it flagrantly contravenes the Wye agreement, the Israelis have been seeking to "compensate" the Palestinians on other issues, including the sensitive subject of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, as well as the opening of a safe passage between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak proposed that all Palestinian detainees, including former freedom fighters, be freed as part of the final status settlement between the two sides. Palestinian sources gave a cautious welcome to the proposal.
"In principle, we welcome the statement," said Hisham Abdel-Razeq, the Palestinian Authority (PA) official in charge of the prisoners issue. But he added: "The priority now is to free the estimated 650 prisoners whose release is stipulated in the Wye agreement." Abdel-Razeq also said that the "ultimate release of all Palestinian prisoners in the context of the final settlement was, as far as we are concerned, a foregone conclusion."
According to one Palestinian source, the PA suspects that Barak's remarks on the release of prisoners were designed to induce, and even pressure, the Palestinians to accelerate the final status talks on Israel's terms.
In addition to discussing the number and categories of prisoners to be released by Israel as part of the implementation of the Wye agreement, both sides also agreed to revive two joint committees on redeployment and the displaced Palestinians who left the Occupied Territories as a result of the 1967 War. The committee on the displaced Palestinians has not met for the past two years, mainly because of the hard-line policies of former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Meanwhile, US President Bill Clinton assured Palestinian President Yasser Arafat that the United States is ready to "do anything necessary to get the peace process back on track".
American assurances, according to Palestinian sources, may have been aimed at allaying growing Palestinian concern for the apparent scaling-down of American involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, as reflected in the postponement of US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's visit to the region. The tour, which was to take place in mid-August, has been put off until the beginning of September.
In Washington, State Department spokesperson James Rubin said the US was planning to host Palestinian officials for talks on the issues at hand prior to Albright's trip. (see p.2)
