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Al-Ahram Weekly 29 June - 5 July 2000 Issue No. 488 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 29 June - 5 July 2000 Issue No. 488
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Miles apart
The Palestinians and Israel will hold talks in Washington after 4 July (US Independence Day) on whether to convene a three-way summit under President Bill Clinton's auspices to hammer out a framework for a final peace.
"The talks will resume in Washington after the 4 July celebrations and if the sides reach a basis for a summit, a summit will be held," a Palestinian official told Reuters after US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met Palestinian President Yasser Arafat yesterday in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Albright was in the region to assess whether the time was ripe for a summit, which the United States hopes will pave the way to an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty by a 13 September target date.
"We feel that there is a need for further negotiations between the two teams, hoping to bridge the gaps," senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Ereikat told CNN television. "And after two weeks or three weeks of negotiations, which may commence the first week of July, we hope that President Clinton will be in a position to declare the next step, whether the gaps have been bridged, to enable us to convene a summit."
Ereikat was explaining why Arafat did not want the summit sooner, as suggested by the United States.
According to AFP, Arafat rejected a US offer to host the summit in mid-July. But Arafat was not opposed in principle to a summit with Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, possibly at the end of July, AFP quoted Palestinian officials as saying.
A Palestinian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to reporters following the two-hour meeting between Arafat and Albright, said the United States wanted to announce the summit on 15 July, but Arafat refused.
"We would welcome the decision of President Clinton," Arafat said earlier during a news conference with Albright, who will advise Clinton whether the two sides are close enough to make a summit worthwhile. Palestinian International Cooperation Minister Nabil Shaath said a summit could take place at the end of July. Clinton is expected to make an announcement after Albright returns to Washington today.
Hassan Abdel-Rahman, the PLO's representative in Washington, told reporters after the Ramallah meeting that "there will be further talks and then it will be decided when the summit will be."
Albright saw Arafat after holding talks with Barak Tuesday night and Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy yesterday morning. She said the United States will continue to do whatever it can, but "it is critical the parties continue to narrow the gaps."
The two sides appeared to remain far apart yesterday, with both laying down mutually exclusive "red lines". "There are real difficulties. We cannot stick our heads in the sand and not see reality," said Levy following the meeting with Albright. "We expect that after the secretary's meeting with ... Arafat, she will be able to assess the situation. In any case, it will be President Clinton who will determine if a summit takes place," Levy told reporters.
Barak took to the airwaves to defend his bid to forge a treaty with the Palestinians in the face of right-wing accusations -- in his cabinet and outside it -- that he was giving away too much. Barak gave back-to-back interviews on Israel's two main radio stations, following a late-night two-hour meeting with Albright at the start of her 35-hour trip to try to arrange a three-way summit hosted by Clinton.
"We will not return to the borders of 1967," Barak vowed on army radio.
A senior adviser to Arafat said a summit would be a waste of time for the Palestinians without prior progress in the ongoing talks with Israel. "President Arafat is not against a summit, but he wants the negotiators to reach common ground so that the leaders in the summit would bridge gaps and make decisions," the adviser, Nabil Abu Rdainah, said.
The Palestinians have said a , based on the model of the Camp David meeting, which led to an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in 1979, would be doomed to failure given the huge gaps on most issues.
"Even if there is a summit, I don't know if there will be an agreement and I won't sign an agreement that I don't think is good," Barak told Israel Radio, denying he had promised the Palestinians any percentage of West Bank land.
Under pressure from right-wingers who oppose handing over what they consider Biblical land to the Palestinians, Barak also said most Jewish settlements in the West Bank would remain under Israeli sovereignty in a final peace deal.
Palestinians are demanding that all 145 settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip be dismantled. Right-wingers in Barak's own coalition have threatened to quit over any land concessions.
