DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 30 (AFP) - The focus of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos shifted to the Middle East Sunday, as the blue-chip summit sought to put violent protests the previous day behind it.
The day's highlight was a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to discuss the latest push for progress in the Mideast peace process.
Their talks in the Swiss mountain resort came on the eve of the resumption of Middle East multilateral talks in Moscow on Monday aimed at promoting Israel-Arab cooperation.
Arafat had already met U.S. President Bill Clinton on Saturday. Afterwards a U.S. official said the Palestinian leader was planning to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak this Thursday or Friday.
Barak had originally been scheduled to attend the Davos summit, but pulled out at the last minute after it became clear that he would not be able to meet Clinton, in town only for a flying visit on the Jewish sabbath (Saturday).
The Albright-Arafat meeting took place around midday Sunday in a Davos hotel.
The Moscow meeting on Monday - the first in three-and-a-half years - is to bring together Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy and at least four of his Arab counterparts. But it is unlikely to be a meeting of minds. The Israelis are anxious to establish relations and embark on economic cooperation with the Arab states, while most of the Arabs baulk at normalizing ties with Israel in the absence of "substantial" progress in the peace process.
The Moscow meeting was convened after Syrian-Israeli talks resumed in December after a break of nearly four years, in an upsurge of optimism that relations between the two would shortly be normalized.
Since then the negotiations have run into deadlock, with the next round postponed indefinitely.
As for the Palestinian track, the peace process appears to be merely marking time, and negotiations are unlikely to meet a February deadline for a framework agreement, nor a final accord by September.
Meanwhile security remained tight in Davos after over 1,000 protestors smashed windows, damaged cars and clashed with police in an anti-globalization demonstration. Gun-toting guards remained stationed around the fortress-like congress center where the WEF annual meeting is taking place, although there were few people inside until later in the day.
On Saturday police were forced to fire rubber bullets and pepper gas on the snow-bound streets of the chic ski resort after protestors defied a ban on demonstrating to mark a quickie visit by U.S. President Clinton.
Two policemen were injured in clashes, while demonstrators smashed the front of a McDonald's restaurant, damaged cars and burned a U.S. flag stripped from a pole outside one of the plush hotels.
Police estimated the number of protestors at 1,300, while one union leader said up to 2,000 people took part, despite a court ban against a demonstration issued last week.
The protests were not on the scale of the violence at the December World Trade Organation (WTO) meeting in Seattle, but sparked alarm in Davos, where an unprecedented security operation had been mounted to prevent them.
