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Arafat Can Not Cede Jerusalem: Palestinian Official
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat can not cede Jerusalem and the Palestinians will never reach any agreement with Israel excluding Jerusalem, said a Palestinian official Thursday.
US President Bill Clinton announced Thursday morning that he will head for Japan to attend the G-8 economic summit, and that Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak will stay in Camp David to continue their talks with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Albright will meet Arafat and Barak on Friday to press ahead with the Camp David summit, which began last Tuesday and was deadlocked due to wide gaps between the two sides over the final status issues, particularly Jerusalem.
Arafat told Barak and Clinton that the Arab leader who might cede Jerusalem has not been born yet, and that no agreement will be reached unless the future status of Jerusalem is properly addressed, said Palestinian Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Ziad Abu Ziad.
Clinton has proposed that a partial agreement be clinched and more negotiations be held over the status of Jerusalem. But Arafat insisted on an all-out agreement including Jerusalem, he added.
The Palestinian delegation to the three-way summit categorically declined to accept an idea suggested by Barak that Israel keeps control over Jerusalem and, in return, grants the Palestinians self-rule in some Palestinian suburbs of the Holy City.
Israel seized the Arab eastern part of Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. It insists that Jerusalem is its eternal and indivisible capital, while the Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of their future independent state.
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