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U.S. Peace Envoy Ends Mideast Shuttle Diplomacy
U.S. special Middle East peace envoy Dennis Ross returned to Washington Saturday night after winding up his two-week mediation between Israel and the Palestinians.
The main purpose of the visit was to study the grounds for another Camp David summit and persuade both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to soften their positions on key issues such as Jerusalem so that they could reach a peace accord on the Israeli-Palestinian final status soon.
Ross, during his shuttle diplomacy which started on August 16, held several rounds of talks with Barak and Arafat and other Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to this end.
He also traveled twice to Egypt to discuss these issues with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a major peace promoter in the region, and asked for help from the the Egyptian leader.
Although Ross refused to disclose any details about his talks, he had reportedly spent a lot of time with the two sides on the Jerusalem issue, which was the main reason for the failure of the Camp David summit held in July between Arafat, Barak under the host of Clinton.
Control of the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem, on which the Al-Aqsa Mosque (Islam's third holiest site) and the Wailing Wall (Jewish holy site) are located, is at the core of the dispute in the Israeli-Palestinian final-status talks. Both Barak and Arafat refused to give up sovereignty over their holy sites.
Ross, by the end of August, brought to the two sides a new U.S. proposal for resolving the sovereignty over the Temple Mount.
In the proposal, the U.S. suggested to divide the Temple Mount area into four sections, each containing a different mix of powers for the two sides. The four sections would be the Islamic holy site, the Temple Mount Plaza, the external wall and the sub-terrace spaces.
It is not clear whether the proposal can be accepted by the two sides, but it is certain that further discussions will be held in the coming days when Barak and Arafat hold separate talks with President Clinton in the United States.
If it turns out that the dispute over the Temple Mount and the Old City in East Jerusalem can not be resolved, Israel is reportedly ready for a mutually-agreed postponement on the Jerusalem issue for five years, during which the status quo will remain in effect.
In that case, however, the Palestinian side will not accede to Israel's demand to declare "the end of the conflict." Israel proposed stating in the agreement, if reached, that the 52-year-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict has ended while both sides still have conflicting claims over Jerusalem.
Ross concluded his mediation by saying that "the two sides have come a long way...and obviously there are still differences." He also said that he will report to Clinton about the outcome of his mission and let the president decide when to call another Camp David-style summit.
Officials in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office repeatedly accused Arafat of demonstrating no flexibility since Camp David, while the Palestinian side says that Israel needs to compromise on all the key issues, particularly the issue of Jerusalem.
Next week, Clinton will meet separately in New York, on the sidelines of the United Nations Millennium Summit, with Barak and Arafat.
The New York meetings will be decisive as to how Clinton, who is leaving office by the year end, will further help push the Israeli-Palestinian final-status talks forward.
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