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Leaders Sum up Results of Mideast Summit in Egypt
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Tuesday the emergency Middle East summit achieved significant agreement on security, renewing the peace process and on fact-finding.
Israeli and Palestinian leaders have stepped back from the abyss and renewed their commitment to resolve their differences by peaceful means, said the UN chief at the closing session of the summit, which opened here Monday.
"It has not been easy. Feelings run high on both sides. Mutual mistrust is deep," Annan said.
Meanwhile, US President Bill Clinton, in his statement at the end of the summit, hailed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for reaching a deal to end the 20 days of bloody clashes and revive the faltering peace process.
"The greatest credit for the progress we have made today belongs to Prime Minister Barak and (Palestinian National Authority) Chairman Arafat," Clinton said. "We all recognize that theirs was the primary decision made."
Clinton left this Red Sea resort immediately after announcing the agreement to attend a memorial service in Virginia on Wednesday for the sailors, who died in a blast on a U.S. destroyer last week in Yemen.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whose country hosted the summit, said the meeting had fallen short of the hopes of the region's people, and warned a ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Palestinians could be fragile.
He said at the closing ceremony that "In the coming days our peoples will watch the degree of commitment by the two parties to implement what has been agreed."
In an interview with two Israeli television stations after Clinton announced the agreement, Barak said that Israel had achieved its objectives at the summit, including preventing an international probe into 20 days of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
"We have achieved our objectives during this summit: an effort to halt the violence of recent weeks and preventing the creation of an international commission of inquiry," he said.
Meanwhile, Barak said that the implementation of the ceasefire agreement with the Palestinians would determine whether Arafat was a partner for peace.
"The test will lie in the implementation," he added. The prime minster also said he was still aiming for the creation of an emergency government with the right-wing opposition after reaching such a deal with the Palestinians at the summit to end the cycle of violence in the region.
There was no immediate response from Arafat, who has left here for home in Gaza.
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