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Peres-Arafat Meeting Possible: Security Sources
The planned meeting between Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was possible if ceasefire on the ground could last till Monday morning, Israeli security sources said Sunday night.
The meeting, scheduled to take place on Sunday, was postponed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on grounds of too much violence.
It was reported that the progress was made between Sharon, Peres and Peres's party colleague and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer after Sharon dispatched his son Omri to meet with Peres to iron out their difference over the issue.
Sharon also promised that he will convene another session of cabinet's meeting to discuss the issue on Monday.
Earlier, Peres' Labor Party threatened to quit the coalition government if Peres is not allowed to have a meeting with Arafat, which the dovish foreign minister hopes could help end the one- year-old violence between the two sides. Nearly 800 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed in the violence.
Although the two sides have carried out a ceasefire since Tuesday, there have been sporadic clashes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. On Sunday night, shooting incidents occurred in Gaza and near the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Sharon obviously wanted to avoid a showdown with Peres before a planned meeting of Labor ministers on Monday, which would decide whether the Labor Party will withdraw from the government after Sunday's cancellation of the Peres-Arafat summit.
During an emergency meeting of Labor ministers on Sunday, Peres said that he wanted to vacate his post, or at least take a vacation, because of the farce around the meeting with Arafat.
Peres was described by the ministers as "being hurt to the depths of his soul," after Sharon on Sunday instructed him not to meet with Arafat, the second time in a week.
Peres reportedly criticized Sharon and said that this was not the first time he has heard on the radio that the prime minister " ordered" or "instructed" him not to do something.
"His (Sharon's) policy is turning the government into a government of extremists in which the Labor Party has nothing to look for," Peres said. "I cannot be ridiculed before the world when this agreement was not really agreed upon and one's word is not kept."
Most of the Labor ministers are expected to stand behind Peres, the interim leader of the party.
Peres has prepared for the meeting with Arafat for weeks. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell took an unusual move to directly call Peres Sunday afternoon to show U.S. strong support for a Peres-Arafat meeting.
The U.S. hopes that some progress would be made between Israel and the Palestinians to help form a global anti-terrorism coalition against exiled Saudi-born billionaire Osama bin Laden, the "prime suspect" in the September 11 attacks in the U.S..
But Sharon said that the U.S. administration left the timing of the meeting up to Israel. He also explained his stand to U.S. ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer.
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