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Peres, Erekat Advocate "Negotiations" as Mideast Violence Continues
WASHINGTON, Aug 19 (News Agencies) - Against a backdrop of continued killings on the ground, both Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and chief Palestinian spokesman Saeb Erekat in interviews here Sunday spoke of the need for resumed negotiations.
"We have to return to the table of negotiation and air out our differences like between two parties that deal with the story honorably and rightly," said Peres on ABC's This Week Sunday program.
But he ventured no further information about any planned meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
A revived ceasefire was "the only solution for the time being," he said.
Peres has been quoted by the Israeli media as saying he will meet with Arafat shortly to discuss reviving a failed June ceasefire.
He has said Israeli officials are already in contact with Palestinian officials on this, but as tensions continued high in the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian negotiator Erekat dismissed such comments as "public relations".
"There is no such contact," Erekat told Agence France-Presse (AFP) Sunday. "We are ready, we have always been ready for meetings but there are conditions for these meetings."
In his interview on ABC's This Week, however, Erakat said, "We call upon Mr. Peres to join the negotiations immediately ... We want resumption of negotiations unconditionally."
Palestinian lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi, also Arab League spokeswoman, similarly said on Fox News Sunday that news of a possible meeting between Peres and Arafat "is used to give the impression that Israelis are willing to talk.
"Every time we meet, Shimon Peres says he doesn't have a mandate on his part [from] an extremist right-wing government and Sharon is the one who dictates policy. And [Sharon's] policy is what we see on the ground in terms of the brutality and military violence," said Ashrawi.
"I think there has to be immediate, unconditional negotiations, but these have to take place not under duress," she continued.
An eight-year-old girl was killed and 12 other Palestinians injured, some seriously, in heavy Israeli gunfire late Sunday on Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources said.
The casualties were all members of the same family, the sources said, without giving any further details on the attack.
The death brings the total number of those killed since the start of the Intifada, or uprising, on September 28th to 723, including 555 Palestinians and 146 Israelis.
In Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip Sunday, U.S.-made Apache helicopters fired two missiles at the local headquarters of Arafat's Force 17 elite guards, Palestinian security officials said.
One passer-by was injured, joining other casualties in the conflict this weekend, including a 38-year-old Palestinian fatally injured when he tried to by-pass an Israeli checkpoint near Nablus and a 13-year-old boy who died after Israeli troops "responded" to stone-throwers in the Gaza Strip.
Two Palestinian babies were badly wounded after Israeli soldiers opened fire on taxis late Saturday. And two passengers traveling on a bus line between settlements north of Jerusalem were injured when the bus came under Palestinian fire, Israeli public radio said.
On international observers, Peres told ABC that, "we are for the United States to monitor the situation. You don't need for that observers."
In any case, "In order to monitor an agreement, you have first to follow an agreement," he added.
Ashrawi meanwhile had strong words of criticism for what she said was inadequate U.S. diplomatic involvement.
The administration of George W. Bush suffers from "moral and political lack of will," she said.
"I don't know whether when President Bush goes on vacation the whole world is supposed to go on vacation, but certainly the situation is drastic ... it is rapidly spinning out of control," she told the Fox interviewer.
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