This week’s meeting of the steering committee on multilateral talks were a failure, in the view of Israeli officials.
The officials said Arab countries refused to discuss the matters on the agenda, and instead used the sessions to attack Israel over its decision to expropriate some 140 acres of mostly Arab-owned land in eastern Jerusalem.
The three-day conference, held in Montreaux, Switzerland, was attended by delegations from Israel, Egypt, the Palestinians, Jordan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia, as well as by mediators from Europe, North America, and Japan.
The steering committee oversees the multilateral working groups, which were launched at the October 1991 Madrid Peace Conference.
The multilateral talks, intended to proceed apart from bilateral negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, address five areas of concern to countries in the Middle East: water, refugees, arms control, the environment and economic development.
At Montreaux, Israel blocked an Arab move to create a sixth working group — on Jerusalem.
But Robert Palletreau, the U.S. assistant secretary of state who heads the steering committee, had reportedly accepted the Arab position that Jerusalem be included in the discussions.
Meanwhile, on the final day of the conference, the Palestine Liberation Organization demanded that Israel Immediately begin negotiations on the permanent status of Palestinian self-rule.
The demand was made by Faisal Husseini, who led the Palestinian delegation to the Montreaux talks.
Under the terms of the Palestinian self-rule accord, talks on final-status issues, including Jerusalem, are to begin no later than May 1996.
The Israeli delegation promised to forward the request to its government.
“It is a very interesting suggestion that we will have to refer to,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin, who headed the Israeli delegation.
Beilin has stated in the past that he favors an immediate start to the final- status talks.
But sources in Jerusalem were less receptive to the idea.
Israel Radio quoted senior officials as saying that Israel will insist on the gradual implementation of the self-rule accord.
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