Negotiator: Barak, Arafat set Monday peace meeting

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -- Israel's Ehud Barak and the Palestinians' Yasser Arafat will try to break a peacemaking deadlock Monday during their first direct talks in two months, senior Palestinian negotiator Hassan Asfour said.

Asfour declined to say where the talks would take place, but he told Reuters the meeting was arranged for Monday night "to push the peace process forward and to calm down the political tension."

Prime Minister Barak and President Arafat last met when they failed to forge a peace agreement at a 15-day-long summit in the United States in July. They shook hands at the U.N. Millennium Summit in New York earlier this month.

Israel's acting Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami said a meeting would take place some time this week.

Palestinians said negotiators for both sides would go to Washington in the next few days to meet U.S. officials. An Israeli diplomatic source said negotiator Gilad Sher would fly to Washington Tuesday.

"All wheels have been invented. We now need to take the tough decisions," Ben-Ami told reporters after talks in Egypt with President Hosni Mubarak. He said the two sides must agree on a timetable for a deal covering the "core issues."

Talks are blocked by emotional issues such as the rights of Palestinian refugees and the future of Jerusalem, which also prevented a deal to end 52 years of conflict being reached at the Camp David summit in July.

Underlining the tensions surrounding the issues, Israel and the Palestinians closed a road near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim in the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip after Palestinian youths threw fire-bombs at Israeli soldiers.

No one was hurt in the incident, which followed a car accident involving an Israeli vehicle Sunday in which eight Palestinians were injured.

President Clinton hopes to mediate a deal before leaving office in January.

All sides have said that if a peace deal is not sewn up before the U.S. presidential election in November, peacemaking could be sidelined for months while Clinton's successor as president settles into the job.

Clinton has helped steer Israel and the Palestinians toward various interim peace deals and brokered a 1994 treaty between Israel and Jordan. He hopes to cap his presidency with a treaty between Israel and the Palestinians.

Barak also faces time pressures because he is expected to face a no-confidence vote in parliament when its summer recess ends at the end of next month.

Ben-Ami said there was still a chance the sides could forge a peace treaty to resolve all issues but Israel would consider a partial agreement if a comprehensive deal proved out of reach.

"We never ruled out the possibility in case we are unable to reach an agreement on all issues to postpone one or two issues, but this is not on the agenda right now," he said in Cairo.

Palestinian officials rule out an agreement that does not include a resolution to Jerusalem.

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. The Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their planned independent state.

The international community fears violence could erupt if the Palestinians declare a state unilaterally.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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