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US Mideast Envoy to Visit Israel, Palestinian Area
William Burns, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's special assistant on the Mideast conflict, is to visit Israel and the Palestinian areas on Sunday, diplomatic sources said on Saturday.
Burns, the U.S. ambassador to Jordan, is scheduled to meet with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Sunday afternoon and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon later in the day, according to the sources.
It was believed that Burns, tipped as assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, will push forward the latest U.S. efforts for ending the eight-month-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which over 550 people have been killed, most of them Palestinians.
Powell asked Burns, along with U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk and U.S. consul-general in Jerusalem Ronald Schlicher, to form a timetable acceptable for both the Palestinians and Israelis to carry out the recommendations of the Mitchell report.
The report, on the causes of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian violence, was published by a five-member international fact-finding committee led by former U.S. senator George Mitchell earlier this month.
Presented in New York on Monday by the international committee, the report calls on both sides to stop fighting, carry out confidence-building measures after a cool-off period, and finally resume their peace talks.
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