|
No Progress in Arafat-Peres Meeting
BRUSSELS, Nov. 6 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Palestinian Authority (PA) President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres met late Monday for the third time in four days, news agencies reported.
Arafat and Peres met in an informal gathering with European Union officials in Brussels, on the sidelines of an international conference.
Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, who holds the EU's rotating presidency, invited Peres and Arafat after holding separate talks with them earlier in the day.
No statements were made after the meeting, BBC's online service reported.
This was their third meeting in four days, coming after the two men held talks on Friday and Saturday at a Middle East forum in Spain.
But so far, nothing substantial has emerged from their talks, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Peres and Arafat met for 75 minutes, but neither man spoke to reporters as they left Verhofstadt's residence.
In Brussels, intensive European efforts were underway to break the deadlock of violence in the Middle East that has cost roughly 953 lives in 13 months, at least 800 of whom are Palestinians.
In an address to the conference Tuesday, Arafat renewed his calls for an immediate and unconditional resumption of negotiations on a final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinian president also reaffirmed his commitment to Middle East peace as a "strategic option".
For his part, Peres said he has no mandate to negotiate with Arafat until he cracks down on resistance groups, such as Islamic Jihad and the Islamic Resistance Front, or Hamas.
"We were forced to enter the cities in the West Bank because the Palestinian Authority did not arrest those who carried out the attacks," Peres said, attempting to justify Israel's highly criticized invasions of Palestinian-ruled towns late last month.
"We cannot make any compromises on the security of Israel. The main crisis is not one of rhetoric but of action. The real problem is one of credibility. What was promised was not realized. We are looking for real action."
The Belgian prime minister, meanwhile, said it was "unrealistic to think that in a few hours or days it is possible to have a long period of no violence, but we have to try."
In another development Tuesday, an anonymous caller claiming to represent Islamic Jihad said the Palestinian group had planted the bomb near a Jewish settlement in the northern West Bank that injured three Israelis, AFP reported.
The bomb in the industrial zone of the settlement of Shaked, close to the flashpoint city of Jenin - currently occupied by Israeli forces - slightly injured three people when it exploded Monday. Israeli authorities did not confirm the report.
|
