Arafat considers U.S. peace plan

WEB EXCLUSIVE Andrea Koppel on recent developments in Mideast peace negotiations

CAIRO, Egypt -- Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat is meeting Arab foreign ministers in Cairo to discuss U.S. peace proposals.

Arafat, who arrived in Cairo Thursday following talks in Washington with U.S. President Bill Clinton , met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak before heading for the Arab League headquarters.

Arab League spokesman Taalat Hamid said the ministers would focus on supporting the Palestinian position and determining how best to end the Palestinian-Israeli clashes of the past three months.

The meeting comes as Gilead Sher, chief of staff to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, flies to Washington for clarification about Arafat's proclaimed willingness to accept U.S.-proposed parameters for continued peace talks.

U.S. officials said they expect Sher will also be looking for "details" of concerns expressed by Arafat, but said it is not likely that Sher will meet with Clinton during this trip.

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Israeli sources said Sher's visit to the U.S. does not mean that negotiations with the Palestinians will resume, but U.S. officials said Clinton and his Mideast peace team want to see "if it's possible to reconcile" the various reservations expressed by both sides to the proposed peace plan.

One senior White House official who spoke with CNN on condition of anonymity said the U.S. plan was to get each side to send somebody to Washington for separate talks with U.S. mediators. So Barak's decision to send Sher to Washington was "the response the U.S. wanted."

If talks progress well with Sher, U.S. officials say they would likely invite another Palestinian delegation to Washington for additional talks before deciding to convene a high-level "summit-like" meeting.

The decision to send Sher was made after Arafat conditionally accepted the U.S.-proposed parameters for future peace talks. (More on the U.S. peace proposals). Barak, who had been briefed by Clinton, called together his "peace cabinet" of ministers who have been involved in the peace process, and that group decided to send Sher to Washington.

Hasan Abdel Rahman, the Palestinian representative to the United States, told CNN that Arafat had accepted in principle the U.S.-proposed parameters for future peace talks, but expressed his reservations. (More on the Palestinian concerns).

"We conveyed to President Clinton our acceptance in principle to the proposal ... with our own explanations and interpretations of those proposals in relation to all the issues," Rahman said.

Rahman said that if Barak is willing to engage in talks, based on what Arafat conveyed to Clinton, the Palestinians were prepared to begin 12 days of talks -- as early as Wednesday -- at any level.

Barak's ministers also decided to accept what it called Clinton's "triple mechanism" to reduce violence in the region and said it would appoint another Israeli representative to work on that proposal.

That mechanism, the ministers said, will deal with curbing terrorist attacks and reducing the violence. It gave no further details. The mechanism would involve an Israeli, a Palestinian and a U.S. official.

Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said Wednesday that Arafat's qualified acceptance of the U.S. proposals marked a "step forward" in the peace process, but that reservations on both sides must be addressed before any further talks can proceed.

An Israeli official said Israel is waiting for a public statement from Arafat, accepting Clinton's proposals in principle before it agrees to further talks. Arafat, he said, may not be objecting to the proposals out of hand because he doesn't want to be seen as "the bad guy," but that does not mean he is planning to negotiate any further.

"We are waiting to learn how qualified this acceptance is," the official said. "The fear on the Israeli side is that Arafat's reservations are so qualified that their practical significance means we are going nowhere quick."

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Palestinian National Authority
Position Regarding Clinton's Proposals
Israeli Prime Minister's Office
Israel Defense Forces (in Hebrew and English)
The White House
Addameer: Palestinian Human Rights Association

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