|
Israeli Elections Place Talks On Hold
CAIRO, Jan 31 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A senior Palestinian official said Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat would not hold proposed direct talks next Sunday and were unlikely to do so before Israeli elections due to be held on February 6th.
"There was an intention to hold a summit on Sunday, but, that would have been difficult especially that Israeli elections would be within two days after the summit begins," said the Palestinian official, who preferred to remain anonymous, to al-Akhbar, a semi-official Egyptian daily.
Barak said on Tuesday he expected to hold a summit with Arafat within a few days after he froze peace talks with Palestinian politicians. And Israeli military radio and two Israeli newspapers reported that an Egypt-brokered summit would be held on Thursday in Egypt.
After resuming marathon peace talks in the Egyptian resort of Taba earlier this week, both sides declared that they were closer to a peace deal than ever.
The Israeli Ma'Arif daily reported on Wednesday that although the Taba negotiations ended without reaching an agreement, the Palestinian and Israeli delegations overcame basic issues of conflict including sovereignty over Jerusalem and issue of Palestinian refugees.
Moreover, the newspaper quoted an anonymous senior Israeli official saying that during the Taba negotiations, the Palestinians gave away the right of return for 3.7 million Palestinians made refugees in 1948.
"The return of the refugees would be within the framework of a sovereign Palestinian state and the refugees would return only to the lands granted by the state of Israel to the Palestinian state," reported Ma'arif, saying that Israel decided to grant Palestinians land in the Naqab desert.
Nevertheless, the Palestinian Authority (PA) insists that Israel should acknowledge the right of return for Palestinian refugees and has urged Israel to abide by U.N. Security Council 's decision 194 concerning the repatriation of refugees.
In return, the PA promised to show flexibility with the implementation of 194.
Arafat also announced that he is against settling Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.
"There will be no settling for the Palestinians in Lebanon and no Palestinian refugee will stay on the Lebanese territories," stated Arafat to the al-Nahar Lebanese daily on Monday.
"I had discussed this matter with the former U.S. President Bill Clinton and he gave me clear guarantees on the American position towards this issue," Arafat said.
"A position which complies with our position in rejecting settlement in Lebanon and the priority to the return back of the Palestinian refugees is that for the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon."
In the meantime, Israeli Justice Minister Yussi Pilan, conducting refugee negotiations for the Israeli side, commented Saturday that "the two delegations were very close to an agreements."
"Some issues were precise, while others were vague," he said to the military radio in response to allegations made in the Ma'arif story.
As for sovereignty over Jerusalem, AFP reports that the two parties have agreed on keeping the Jewish areas, established after 1967 in east Jerusalem, under Israeli control, while areas that are predominantly inhabited by Palestinians would be transferred to Palestinian control.
|
