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Barak Backtracks on Suspension of Talks with Palestinians
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak Tuesday evening retracted his earlier decision to suspend the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
A statement issued by Barak's office said that the talks between Israeli negotiator Gilad Sher and his Palestinian counterpart Saeb Erekat will be resumed on Wednesday.
"The contacts that are aimed at checking whether there is a basis for the renewal of formal negotiations will continue tomorrow," the statement said.
"The meeting is a continuation of the meetings that took place at the beginning of this week and after such a meeting did not take place today," it added.
Earlier Tuesday, a source in Barak's office who insisted on anonymity announced that Barak had decided to halt the peace talks with the Palestinians because they lack readiness to make key compromises.
"The Israel side will take a time-out from the talks from the very day, and Israel will use the time-out for internal consultation," the sources added.
He stated that Israel has reached the limit of its flexibility in the negotiations, while the Palestinians did not reciprocated Israel's good intentions, which is the main reason for the suspension of the talks.
It is still not clear why the prime minister reconsidered his decision so dramatically and in so short a time. But it was widely believed that the United States, a sponsor of the Mideast peace process, had put pressure on the Israeli side.
Barak cancelled the talks between Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat and his Israeli negotiator Gilad Sher Tuesday afternoon. "They told me there would be no meeting tomorrow, or the day after," said Erekat.
Sher also told reporters that until Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is ready to make critical concessions, the talks will not move forward.
The talks between Erekat, his colleague Mohammed Dahlan on the Palestinian side and Israeli acting Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami and Sher on the Israeli side had been the major negotiation channel between the two sides since the Camp David summit.
The summit attended by Barak, Arafat and U.S. President Bill Clinton in July failed to reach any agreement due to significant gaps over the fate of Jerusalem and the return of Palestinian refugees.
Early this month, Barak and Arafat met with Clinton separately on the sidelines of the United Nations' Millennium Summit in New York, but the talks also failed to revive the peace process.
Erekat and Sher resumed their talks in Jerusalem last Sunday to keep momentum of the peace talks, but Barak told his cabinet Monday that despite the continuation of the contacts, "there has been no noteworthy progress and no movement is visible in the position of the Palestinians."
"So it continues to remain unclear whether we have a partner for peace," the prime minister said.
Barak's referring to "internal consultation" on Tuesday, analysts believed, may indicated that the prime minister decided to abandon the peace talks for a while and began his uphill task to restore his coalition's parliamentary majority.
The coalition, which now controls only one-third seats in the 120-member Knesset (parliament), is in dire need of a majority to survive no-confidence motions when the Knesset reconvened at the end of October after the summer recess.
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