US resumes Mideast truce talks ahead of Arab Summit
( 2002-03-24 10:17 ) (7 )

US envoy Anthony Zinni was to resume security talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials on Sunday to achieve a Middle East truce ahead of a key Arab summit in Beirut later this week.

Officials from both sides said the cease-fire talks to end 18 months of bloodshed, which ended without results on Friday, would forge ahead on Sunday.

But Zinni's efforts were marred on Saturday by new violence in the Gaza Strip in which Israeli troops killed five Palestinians, two of them militants who stormed an army post.

"The (security) meeting ended without real results (on Friday) but with an atmosphere that talks would continue," Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said on Saturday

Aides to Yasser Arafat said the Palestinian president was already planning to head to the March 27-28 summit, a trip that would end his three-month-old confinement in the West Bank imposed by Israel after a wave of Palestinian attacks.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said Arafat can attend the summit only if he implements a truce. The United States has also held out the possibility of a high-level meeting with Arafat if a cease-fire is forged.

In an unusual turn, Sharon suggested that he go to Beirut himself to present Israel's views on a Saudi peace plan for the Middle East expected to be a focus of the meeting.

It is unlikely that Sharon would be a welcome visitor to the Lebanese capital, where he is despised for commanding Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

In Ramallah, Palestinian officials said Arafat planned to go to the summit in what would be his first trip since Israeli tanks bottled him up in his West Bank compound in December.

A senior Palestinian official who asked not to be identified said Arafat would make a stopover in Cairo to see Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak before flying on to Beirut. Egyptian officials had no immediate comment on Mubarak's plans.

SHARON IN BEIRUT?

US officials are believed to be keen for Arafat to attend the summit to help give momentum to the Saudi plan as Washington seeks support in the region for a campaign against Iraq, which Arab leaders have said they would oppose.

Peres also said Arafat should go if he keeps a lid on violence in the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.

"I think we will only make the decision at the last minute," Peres told Channel Two television. "If we don't let him go, the Beirut summit will be in Ramallah. All eyes will be on Ramallah to see what Arafat says and does."

An Israeli political source said Sharon had proposed a trip to Beirut in talks with Vice President Dick Cheney last week. Sharon made similar remarks in a newspaper interview.

"In talking to the Americans, I suggested I'll go to Beirut to talk to the Arabs directly about what might be achieved and I would welcome an American initiative to advance such a move," Sharon told the Washington Post.

The Saudi plan calls for an Israeli withdrawal from all Arab land taken in the 1967 Middle East war in exchange for full normalization of Arab ties with the Jewish state. The initiative echoes past Arab demands rejected by Israel, which sees the retention of some of the lands as essential to its security.

"Sharon should stop his attempts to undermine the Saudis' serious and strategic initiative by playing around with the process," said Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat.

"We all know that Sharon will not accept...any peace ideas that include a complete Israeli withdrawal from the lands it occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem," he said.

GAZA VIOLENCE

Israeli soldiers shot dead two Palestinian militants who attacked an outpost near the Jewish settlement of Dugit in the Gaza Strip with grenades, sources from both sides said.

Israeli fire killed three other Palestinians, including a teacher, in separate incidents in Gaza on Saturday. The army could not confirm the incidents.

The bloodshed, in the wake of three Palestinian suicide bombings since Wednesday, tore at hopes that Zinni would succeed in brokering a cease-fire after failing in two previous attempts.

President Bush said on Friday that Zinni would decide whether Arafat had curbed violence enough for him to meet Cheney in what would be his highest contact with US officials since Bush took office in January 2001.

But the talks are bogged down in disputes over a timetable for sealing the cease-fire and progressing to a broader US-backed plan for defusing mutual mistrust and resuscitating talks on a final peace settlement.

The bloodshed, which has spiked in recent weeks, has killed at least 1,095 Palestinians and 355 Israelis since the uprising erupted in September 2000 after peace talks foundered.