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Israelis, Palestinians Discuss Final Status Issues
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators continued their deliberations with US mediators for the third day at a US air force base in Washington on Thursday, December 21, but the focus of the talks has switched from the cessation of the Middle East violence to a possible final status agreement.
US Middle East envoy Dennis Ross and his deputy, Aaron Miller, met the delegations both separately and together during the day, while Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is scheduled to meet the negotiators in the evening at Bolling Air Force Base in southeastern Washington, according to US officials.
White House spokesman Jake Siewert told reporters that President Bill Clinton called his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak on Thursday to bring him up to date on talks in Washington.
"The president wanted to bring him (Mubarak) up to date on what was going on here and to share their assessment of how to move the process forward," he said.
Refusing to go into any specifics of the on-going talks, Siewert did not ruled out the possibility of Clinton having another meeting with the negotiators on Friday.
Clinton met with the delegations for 45 minutes at the White House on Wednesday.
It was reported that the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, who arrived here on Tuesday, are expected to stay on through Saturday, at least one day later than originally planned. U.S. officials had said that the talks were to end on Thursday afternoon or Friday morning.
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