Peace hopes back with Clinton

JERUSALEM - Efforts to revive a moribund peace process shifted to the United States yesterday, as Israeli and Palestinian negotiators went to Washington for separate talks against a backdrop of continued bloodshed.

The team for the Israelis is Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami and peace negotiator Gilead Sher and for the Palestinians, Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, senior negotiator Saeb Erekat and preventive security chief Mohammed Dahlan.

The diplomatic offensive may be US President Bill Clinton's last chance to score a Middle East peace accord before his successor George W. Bush takes office on January 20.

Before leaving the West Bank, Abed Rabbo said: "We will start consultations with the Americans ... and the Israelis will have their own consultations with the Americans, and if there is a need, there will be trilateral meetings."

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said he was ready to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, but only after proper preparation.

"If it is needed, why not? But ... we have to prepare for this meeting," Arafat said.

Israeli political sources said a Barak-Arafat meeting would be possible only after the round of Washington talks.

Despite the diplomatic efforts to ease the 12th week of violence raging in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the blood continued to flow.

Clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinians have resulted in the deaths of at least 329 people, most of them Palestinians. Thirteen Arab Israelis and 38 other Israelis have also died.

In two separate incidents in the West Bank on Sunday, two Palestinian men accused of being collaborators with Israel were killed by Palestinian gunmen, hospital sources and Palestinian villagers said.

Also in the West Bank, the body of an 18-year-old youth was found in the village of Aboud, near Ramallah. He had been killed by a bullet in the head, Israeli police said. Palestinian radio reported that villagers said Jewish settlers killed him.

Witnesses said Israeli tanks on Sunday fired heavy machineguns and at least 15 tank shells at Yabne refugee camp on the Egyptian border with Gaza after Palestinians fired at the tanks.

An Israeli official was expected to set out to brief Jordan's King Abdullah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the US talks, Israeli political sources said.

Jordan and Egypt are the only Arab countries to have signed peace treaties with the Jewish state. Mubarak yesterday slammed Israel for what he said was its excessive use of force against Palestinian protesters.

"Israel has used its military arsenal to violently attack and terrorise the Palestinian people and turned the Palestinian areas into a big prison for an unarmed people," he said.

Israeli officials close to the negotiations said Barak would be willing to go beyond West Bank territorial compromises offered at a Camp David summit in July in return for Palestinian flexibility over the right of refugee return.

But officials in Barak's office said he would not compromise on Israeli sovereignty over a Jerusalem holy site revered by Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif and by Jews as Temple Mount.

Barak is desperate for a peace deal that will shore up his chance to retain his post in a special election slated for February that was triggered by his resignation last week.

- REUTERS

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