Peres asked to keep out

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ehud Barak appealed publicly to Nobel peace laureate Shimon Peres yesterday not to challenge him in an Israeli election that will set the course for peacemaking with the Palestinians.

While political drama gripped Israel, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators gathered in Washington for talks at a secluded United States Air Force base on how to stop 12 weeks of violence and resume peace efforts.

"To my friends, foremost among them Shimon, I say, come along with us on a charge towards peace," Barak, leader of the Labour Party, told a televised election rally in the southern city of Beersheba.

"Don't lend a hand towards factionalism and dispute," he said. Barak took over as Labour leader after Peres lost the premiership to right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud Party in the 1996 election.

Barak, who resigned on December 10 but remains caretaker Prime Minister, addressed an enthusiastic crowd after Netanyahu dropped out of the race for Prime Minister and Peres said he was considering trying for the job himself.

Netanyahu's withdrawal, after Parliament rejected his call for a general election, appeared to leave former general Ariel Sharon, his hawkish heir to the Likud leadership, as Barak's main challenger in a February 6 prime ministerial vote.

The date was set yesterday after Israel's Central Elections Committee, which had wanted more time to prepare for the ballot, decided against pursuing a 30-day postponement.

Breaking a silence on his own political aspirations, Peres, 77, said of his possible candidacy: "I am weighing it very carefully." He told reporters that he was aware of concerns that if he stood it might split the left-wing vote.

A perpetual loser in Israeli elections despite his international reputation as a diplomat and peacemaker, Peres failed this year to win an election in Parliament for the ceremonial office of President.

Peres, along with then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize after forging a historic interim peace deal a year earlier. Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by an ultranationalist Jew.

Arriving in Washington for the peace talks, Saeb Erekat, the head of the Palestinian delegation, told reporters: "To be honest I do not have high expectations."

At least 330 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed in the Palestinian uprising that erupted two months after a peace summit in Camp David, Maryland, ended without an accord. Thirteen Arab Israelis and 38 other Israelis have also died.

Barak said the new US-hosted peace drive was "another attempt ... to reduce the level of violence and try to examine if it was possible to resume the negotiations.

"There is no other way ... except to prevent another total war and especially its terrible price," he said.

"We will never surrender, nor will we sign an agreement at any price. But we will examine, responsibly, the prospects for peace."

Barak, 58, desperately needs a peace deal to bolster his electoral chances. Although Netanyahu led in opinion polls, the surveys also show Sharon, the 72-year-old leader of Israel's 1982 Lebanon invasion, ahead of Barak.

Palestinians accuse Sharon of sparking their uprising against Israeli occupation with his highly publicised visit on September 28 to a Jerusalem site revered by Muslims and Jews.

A State Department spokesman said the talks could ultimately be joined by US President Bill Clinton, whose eight years of Middle East mediation are due to end with the inauguration of George W. Bush on January 20.

Initially, both sides are expected to hold parallel bilateral discussions with US mediator Dennis Ross or his deputy, Aaron Miller, possibly followed by Israeli-Palestinian or three-way meetings including the Americans.

The meetings are expected to end by Friday in time for the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.

Netanyahu, 51, told a news conference that although he was now out of the race, it was only a matter of time before a paralysed and fragmented Parliament would have to dissolve itself.

"When it happens, I will be there."

At the United Nations, Palestinians suffered a setback when the Security Council defeated their demands for a UN observer force to calm the bloodiest Arab-Israeli violence in years.

Palestinians in the West Bank held a half-day commercial strike to protest against the resumption of peace talks they believe have led nowhere. Arafat's Fatah faction joined the call for a strike and protest marches.

- REUTERS

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