Clinton to Continue Meetings with Barak, ArafatUS President Bill Clinton will hold separate meetings with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in a dogged effort to end the violence and restore calm in the region.Clinton has decided to extend his stay in the Egyptian Red Sea resort from Monday midnight to Tuesday noon in order to invest more time in containing the crisis which has left over 100 people dead and 3,000 others injured. Barak, who left the golf club building where the summit has been held apparently to rest three hours ago, has returned to the scene for renewed talks with Clinton. A moment before, Clinton was holding talks with Arafat and Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president and host of the summit, an Egyptian information official said. As the marathon emergency Mideast summit enters its second day, there will be bilateral as well as multilateral talks going on in the small hours, he added. A closing session of the leaders is scheduled at 10 a.m. (0800 GMT) in which a final statement is expected to be issued, he added. But he refused to say if progress has been made after the tense negotiations throughout the day. Mubarak has left after the three-way meeting with Clinton and Arafat. Before that, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Jordan's King Abdullah II and the European Union diplomat Javier Solana had all wrapped up a whole day's work and left the building. |
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