Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak asked Palestinian President Yasser Arafat January 17 to postpone the February deadline for a final-status framework agreement by two months, senior Israeli sources said.

The two leaders discussed the possibility of postponing the deadline, set by the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum signed last September, at a closed-door meeting held at an undisclosed location in central Israel late Monday night, according to sources close to the meeting.

During the meeting, they also negotiated the postponement of the third-stage Israel Defense Forces' withdrawal from the West Bank, but no further information was given by the sources.

Barak offended the Palestinians on Sunday by announcing he would put off the third-stage hand-over, in which Israel was due to withdraw another 6.1 percent of the West Bank on January 20.

The meeting between Barak and Arafat had not been scheduled because it had expected that Barak would have a three-side meeting with Arafat and US President Bill Clinton in Washington on Thursday, one day after the third-round talks between Barak and Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shara resumed there.

But officials in Barak's office announced Monday night that the planned Israeli-Syrian talks were postponed indefinitely because of their sharp differences over the fate of the Golan Heights, which were occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Thus, Barak canceled the plan to fly to Washington and proposed this surprise meeting with Arafat to iron out some of the glitches in the ongoing talks between them.

Under the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum, Israelis and Palestinians should reach a framework agreement on the final-status issues by February 13 and a final accord on permanent peace by September 13.

But since officially started in last November, the permanent-status negotiations between Israeli chief negotiator Oded Eran andhis Palestinian counterpart Yasser Abed Rabbo had failed to make substantial progress.

Clinton, fighting against losing momentum completely, had invited Arafat to Washington this week to hear his stands on the permanent-status negotiations. (Xinhua)