President Clinton said tonight that he believes that Israel and the Palestinians are closer to a peace accord than ever before. But a top Palestinian negotiator warned that his side could not accept Mr Clinton's plan for Middle East peace. "In a letter, the Palestinian leadership said it cannot accept these American ideas as a basis for a settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," the official said. "It also clarified that these ideas are not different from proposals made at Camp David and some of them are worse than ideas presented at Camp David," he said, referring to the failed US-hosted peace summit in July.
Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said that Palestinians had submitted to the US a list of issues that needed to be clarified before they could make a final decision on President Clinton's proposals and hoped to receive a response soon. "We're better off if we have the details, if we have the clarity and if both sides understand...what exactly we were doing in order to produce the agreement required - and this agreement requires above anything details, details, details," he said. The executive of the Palestine Liberation Organisation is due to meet later today to review the plan. It is thought that the main stumbling blocks remain the future of Jerusalem and the future status of Palestinian refugees.
Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, and the Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat, will hold a summit meeting in Egypt tomorrow. The announcement follows the compromise proposals for an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord put forward by President Clinton. Mr Arafat was the last to confirm he would attend the peace talks, hosted by Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak at the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in Sinai. Ehud Barak convened his security cabinet this morning to formulate a response to President Clinton's peace plan.
The deal would create a Palestinian state and Israel would give up sovereignty over East Jerusalem, with joint sovereignty and access arrangement to the Al-Aqusa Mosque. But the deal has critics on both sides. It is being debated in the Israeli Parliament, the Knessett, this lunchtime, and some Israelis have taken to the streets in protest.
The planned meeting will be the first time that the Palestinian leader and the Israeli Prime Minister have met since the outbreak of the recent spell of violence three months ago. President Clinton is keen to end his second term of office with a high-profile foreign policy success. He will leave his post on January 21. Meanwhile, Ehud Barak badly needs to construct a viable peace deal to boost his chances of winning the forthcoming election in February.
