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Palestinian-Israeli Talks to Continue in Israeli Eilat
Palestinian and Israeli negotiators will continue their marathon talks that started Sunday night in Egypt's resort town of Taba in Israel's Eilat Monday evening, a member of the Palestinian negotiating team said.
Hassan Asfour disclosed the venue change after the three-hour session Monday afternoon, the state-run Middle East News Agency reported.
Israeli Tourism Minister Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, who is also a member of the Israeli team, said that they would return to the Egypt's Red Sea resort Taba on Tuesday.
The ongoing Palestinian-Israeli talks were devoted to the thorniest issues such as Jerusalem, borders, security and the Palestinian refugees' right of return for a framework accord before the Israeli prime ministerial election on February 6.
The negotiations, proposed by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, were based on the former US President Bill Clinton's bridging proposals for a final settlement to the decades-old Palestinian- Israeli conflict.
Clinton's proposals would give Palestinians sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods and the Al Aqsa mosque compound in East Jerusalem, but deny the Palestinian refugees' right of return to their homeland in Israel.
The Palestinian side stressed that any peace settlement should be based on the UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, which call for Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Arab territories, especially East Jerusalem, and guarantee the Palestinian refugees' right of return.
Lipkin-Shahak termed the talks Wednesday afternoon as "very serious." The talks will last for 10 days.
Ahmed Qurei, speaker of the Palestine Council and also an architect of the 1993 Oslo peace accords between Israel and Palestinians, said that "we discussed all the issues which represent the keys to an agreement, but there are still gaps."
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