Sharon, Arafat exchange flurry of back-channel overtures
Special to World Tribune.com
MIDDLE EAST NEWSLINE
Monday, March 12, 2001
RAMALLAH — Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser
Arafat are planning a leadership summit.
Sharon — who leaves for the United States on March 19 — has pledged
not to meet Arafat or renew peace talks with the Palestinians until the
mini-war ends. But Palestinian sources said Arafat and Sharon have already
exchanged a series of messages to arrange a meeting and renew peace talks in
exchange for a reduction in violence, Middle East Newsline reported.
The sources said Sharon has expressed readiness to renew peace talks.
But the prime minister wants such negotiations to begin without
preconditions or a time frame. Arafat is said to have rejected this and
demands that the talks resume where they left off under the previous
administration of former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Palestinian sources said the United States is pressing Israel to agree
to a meeting between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and PA Chairman Yasser
Arafat. They said such a meeting could take place after the Arab League
summit on March 27.
Israeli sources said Sharon will first send his foreign minister, Shimon
Peres, to meet Arafat. Later, Sharon might agree to meet the Palestinian
leader.
The London-based Al Hayat daily reported that Israel and the PA have
established two secret negotiating channels. One is to end the mini-war and
the other is to discuss a peace settlement.
On Saturday, Arafat told the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza
that he is ready to renew talks with Israel. He dismissed Israeli assertions
that he wasted an opportunity to sign a peace accord with the Barak
administration.
"We did not save any efforts to achieve peace," Arafat said. "We used
every possible chance in order to achieve peace but we were always facing
offers that were unacceptable to Palestinians, Arabs, Christians and
Muslims. Let's implement all the obligations that have come about as a
result of negotiations, and to resume the final status talks, from the point
which had been reached, the important understanding, in Camp David, Sharm
e-Sheik and Taba. This is the only logical way to achieve complete security
formula, and
concrete political principles for the coming agreements."
Over the weekend, Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen clashed
throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. On Friday, Israeli Defense Minister
Binyamin Ben-Eliezer came under fire during a tour of Israeli military
positions in Gaza.
Monday, March 12, 2001
|