Arafat-Peres Meeting to Be Conditioned: Palestinian OfficialA possible meeting between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres will not be held unless "all essential issues," including the Mitchell report, can be discussed, a senior Palestinian official said Sunday."Date and venue of the meeting will not be decided unless we are assured that Peres is empowered to negotiate by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon," said Palestinian International Cooperation Minister Nabil Shaath, quoted by Egypt's state-run MENA news agency. Shaath made the remarks after meeting Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers, Ahmed Maher and Abdel Ilah-khatib, over the Mideast crisis, MENA said. Sunday's tripartite talks came within the context of continued coordination among the three sides to deal with new Israeli measures to isolate and impose siege on the Palestinian territories, especially on occupied Jerusalem, said Ahmed Maher. The Mitchell report, released in May by an international panel led by former U.S. senator George Mitchell, urges both sides to break the cycle of violence, adopt confidence-building measures after a cooling-off period, and finally resume peace talks. More than 750 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed since September last year in the deadly Palestinian-Israelis clashes. |
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