Washington Times - 09/30/98
By Martin Sieff
Yasser Arafat said after meeting with President Clinton yesterday that he had accepted a proposal under which Israel would turn
over another 13 percent of the West Bank to his Palestinian Authority. That means the two sides may be able to sign an interim
agreement next month that would clear the way for final-status talks to begin. Under the terms of the Oslo peace accords,
"permanent status" negotiations must be completed by May 4. The talks would cover such questions as an independent Palestinian
state and the prickly issue of Jerusalem, which both Israel and the Palestinians want as their capital. Mr. Arafat said yesterday after
his talks with Mr. Clinton that he would yield to the Israeli demand that 3 percent of the territory handed over to the Palestinians be
designated as a nature reserve, from which construction would be forbidden. "We have accepted it," Mr. Arafat said. But he insisted
that the Palestinians share responsibility for security in the nature preserve, which would be located in the Judean desert southeast
of Jerusalem. Now that Israel has agreed to give up 13 percent of the West Bank on top of 27 percent promised in -- Continued from
Front Page -- past accords, the focus of U.S. mediation shifts to whether Mr. Arafat would provide the kind of security concerns to
seal a deal with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. At a three-way meeting Monday, Mr. Clinton asked Mr. Arafat and Mr.
Netanyahu to return to Washington in mid-October to complete the West Bank agreement. White House spokesman Michael
McCurry said "the president is determined to see an agreement arise" from his series of talks and mediation leading up the
mid-October summit. Mr. Arafat said he hoped there could be a signing by then. "Peace is a Palestinian need, Israeli need, Arab
need, international need," he said. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat quoted Mr. Arafat as saying he "will make every possible
effort" to meet that deadline. Mr. McCurry said the president was prepared to take a hands-on role in the mid-October summit. "I
think the president is determined to see an agreement arise from this exercise," he told reporters. He said Mr. Clinton would be
"directly involved in some way, shape or form" at the summit, but played down the idea that the gathering would be similar to the
marathon sessions led by President Carter at Camp David in Maryland in 1978. At yesterday's meeting, Mr. Arafat talked alone with
Mr. Clinton for 20 minutes and met with the president together with senior aides, including Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright
and National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger, for 40 minutes, said a White House official. The meeting appeared to end on a very
warm note, as the president saw Mr. Arafat to the White House driveway and shook hands with him several times for the benefit of
photographers. Mr. Netanyahu told reporters Monday that he thought the interim agreement could be signed within a month,
following more than eight months of deadlock. But he said the two sides had not yet agreed on the precise areas to be vacated and
to be defined as a nature reserve. When asked if a mutually agreed-upon map of these areas had been drawn up, he replied, "No."
The Israelis have insisted that the 3 percent be consolidated in a single area in the uninhabited Judean desert. The Palestinians
have in the past rejected this and insisted that the nature reserve area be scattered in different parts of the West Bank. The subject
appears arcane but is vital because the hilly desert region controls the approaches to Israel from the Jordan Valley and would be
crucial to block any land invasion from the east. U.S. diplomats said now the focus in the negotiations would return to the issues of
Palestinian compliance with the 1993 and 1995 Oslo accords. Israel has complained that Mr. Arafat has more than twice as many
men under arms as he agreed to in the accords; that they are being trained to function as an army and not a police force; that the
Palestinian Authority has refused to extradite any terror-murder suspects back to Israel; and that it has made no serious move to
repeal the clauses in the 1964 Palestine National Charter calling for the destruction of Israel. In an industrial area of the West Bank
yesterday, a car rigged with explosives blew up, killing a member of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, which has waged a
car-bomb campaign slaughtering scores of Israeli civilians. Palestinian police said they were investigating the possibility that the car
was being readied for a suicide attack in Israel. Israel has been bracing for a renewal of Hamas bombings, and yesterday sealed its
borders with the West Bank and Gaza Strip ahead of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur to try to deter violence. Mr. Netanyahu has
demanded that Mr. Arafat use his powerful security forces to crack down on Hamas to prevent terror attacks. On Monday, Mr.
Netanyahu confirmed at the White House that he was relinquishing Israel's claim to more land on the West Bank provided it would
not be used as a base for attacks on Israel. |
