U.S. Envoy Briefs Barak on Clinton-Mubarak Meeting

U.S. Mideast special envoy Dennis Ross briefed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak Tuesday afternoon on the meeting between U.S. President Bill Clinton and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo earlier Tuesday.

Clinton, who visited Egypt as a stop-off after an African tour, talked with Mubarak for 90 minutes at Cairo International Airport, trying to launch a U.S.-Egyptian drive to narrow gaps between Israel and the Palestinians for reaching an agreement.

Ross, who spent recent days in Israel for vacation and accompanied Clinton in Cairo, told Barak that during the meeting, Mubarak pledged to contribute maximum efforts he can and all necessary assistance to help the two sides to reach a compromise, especially on the issue of Jerusalem.

It was reported that Mubarak, who had played a significant role in the mediation, had raised some "new ideas" regarding the status of Jerusalem in the past week.

The issue has been the major sticking point between the two sides as Israel claims the holy city as its "eternal and undivided capital," while the Palestinians want at least Arab East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in the 1967 Mideast war, as the capital of their future state.

Last month's Camp David summit, attended by Barak, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Clinton, collapsed mainly due to differences over the status of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.

Since then, Arafat has launched marathon diplomatic efforts to explicate his positions to world leaders, and tried to formulate a unified Arab stand on the issue during Monday's meeting of the Jerusalem Committee of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Morocco.

During his meeting with Ross, Barak reiterated Israeli stands regarding the peace process in general, and on the Jerusalem issue in particular, a statement issued by Barak's office said.

The prime minister said, according to the statement, that he is looking forward to more openness and flexibility from the Palestinian side.

Officials in Barak's office said that if the Palestinians present a new stance on the issue of Jerusalem, a new summit will be possible.

Barak added that at the current stage, the chances for reaching an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord are 50 to 50, and he really did not know if the possibility for ending the 52-year-long conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians could be realized.

At the end of the Clinton-Mubarak meeting, Ross also said that it is possible for both sides to reach an agreement, but the difficulty is in translating a possibility into a reality.

Ross and Barak agreed to meet again Wednesday night. Notably, Mubarak will also meet with Arafat on Wednesday, which is their sixth meeting after the failed Camp David summit.

Barak and Arafat will both travel to New York next week to attend the United Nations Millenium summit, at the sidelines of which they will meet with Clinton separately. There is no plan for

the three to hold another three-way summit, Barak's office clarified on Tuesday.

In a related development, Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin said Tuesday that the Jerusalem issue is only a semasiological problem, suggesting that constructive diplomatic language was the key to resolving the dispute.

"The main point is what to call the status quo because everyone knows there will be no real change in the status quo," Beilin told Israel's Army Radio.

Israel controls most parts of Jerusalem, but the Temple Mount in the stone-walled Old City, which is both Jewish and Muslim holiest site, was under the hands of Waqf, a Palestinian religious group.

"The question is only what will be the diplomatic title for the situation that will be created when there will be peace here. When it's titles that are being discussed, it seems to me that it's not impossible to bridge the gaps which still exist," he added.



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