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Time Not Ripe for Renewing Israeli-Palestinian Talks: Barak
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak insisted Wednesday that time is still not ripe for renewing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks following the failure of last month's Camp David summit.
Speaking at the press conference to launch Israel's new school year, Barak said that if the Palestinians show more flexibility and openness, the negotiations could be jump-started. However, he added, he had not seen the signal.
The peace talks had hit a standstill since the 15-day-long Camp David talks between Barak, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and U.S. President Bill Clinton, failed to reach an agreement due to significant gaps over the fate of Jerusalem and the return of Palestinian refugees.
It was reported that Israeli acting Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami and attorney Gilad Sher, Israel's chief negotiators, will continue low-level contacts with their Palestinian counterparts Saeb Erekat and Mohammed Dahlan. Ben-Ami and Sher are also scheduled to meet with U.S. Mideast special envoy Dennis Ross in Tel Aviv on Thursday.
Meanwhile, a drive jointly launched by Clinton and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had tried to persuade the two sides to return to the negotiating table to solve their differences on all core issues, especially the thorniest issue of Jerusalem.
Arafat on Wednesday flew to Egypt to meet with Mubarak, who had held a 90-minute session with Clinton on Tuesday. Egypt is floating proposals, one of which is to let the whole holy city to be an "open city," while its western and eastern part could be Israel's and the Palestinians' capital respectively, according to Israel Radio reports.
Israel claims the whole of Jerusalem as its "eternal and undivided capital" and the Palestinians want Arab East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as the capital of their future state.
Regarding the core problem of the dispute -- the status of the Temple Mount, which is in the stone-walled Old City and hosts both Israelis' and Palestinian's holiest religious sites, the United States also reportedly raised new ideas.
Local Ha'aretz daily reported Wednesday a U.S. proposal suggests that the Temple Mount be divided into four sections, each containing a different mix of powers for the two sides.
However, Barak refused to confirm this proposal at Wednesday's news conference, saying that he did not read the newspaper and did not know the suggestion. "I am not sure whether it has any basis," he added.
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