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Israel Still Pushes For Three-Way Summit
An Israeli official said Thursday a proposed Israeli-Palestinian-U.S. summit in Washington can help solve the difference between Israel and the Palestinians over final-status issues.
Israel and the Palestinians will miss an opportunity if they fail to reach a final peace agreement in the next few months while U.S. President Bill Clinton can still broker the peace deal, Minister of Prime Minister's Office Haim Ramon said in an interview with Israel's Channel Two television.
The United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright ended her two-day shuttle trip in the region earlier Thursday, failing to win Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's support for the three-day summit.
Arafat asked negotiators of the two sides to hold another round of talks in the U.S. before such a summit was held. Otherwise, the summit, which is expected to narrow the gaps between the two sides on all key issues such as Jerusalem, borders, refugees, Jewish settlement and water, was doomed to fail, Arafat said.
"It is not worth the delay because we all know that President Clinton is about to end his term," Ramon told the television.
With the approach of the presidential elections in the U.S. in November, he said, it would be difficult for Clinton to raise in the Congress the very significant aid needed for carrying out an agreement.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak strongly supports the holding of the summit, saying that it's time for himself and Arafat to make the hard decisions needed to close the peace deal.
Clinton, who will decide whether to convene the summit after hearing from Albright on her return, told reporters Wednesday in Washington that he does not believe that the two sides can resolve the final, most difficult issues without having the leaders get together in some isolated setting and make the last tough decisions.
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