While the spotlight shone this week on the Clinton-Assad talks in Geneva and their ramifications on the scheduled resumption of talks between Israel and Syria, negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization resumed Tuesday in the Sinai border town of Taba.
A possible break in the stalemated talks came Wednesday evening, when chief PLO negotiator Nabil Sha’ath submitted a new proposal on the thorniest issue confronting the two sides: who will control the border crossings between the West Bank town of Jericho and Jordan and between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.
The deadlock in the talks appeared to be of little concern to Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who presumably believes the Palestinians have more to lose than the Israelis if implementation of the self-rule accord suffers further delays.
“If it takes a little more time – even months – we can hold on,” Peres said Wednesday in a speech to members of the Labor Party.
Implementation of the self-rule accord was scheduled to begin on Dec. 13, but the date came and went when negotiators were unable to agree on how to resolve security issues facing them.
Sha’ath’s proposal represents the first sign of movement in what has become a veritable holding pattern in the talks over the crossing-points question.
Following the submission of Sha’ath’s proposal, the Israeli delegation, led by Israel Defense Force Deputy Chief of Staff Amnon Shahak, immediately adjourned for consultations and new instructions from Jerusalem.
The talks at Taba resumed Tuesday after a long weekend break. The two sides were reportedly close to agreement on the issue of transferring civilian powers and authority to the Palestinians in Gaza and Jericho.
But the two sides were still divided over issues of security – particularly the question of the crossing points – which have held up implementation of the self-rule accord signed last September in Washington.
Other issues still to be worked out by the two teams include that size of the Jericho area that will fall under Palestinian authority and security arrangements for Jewish settlers in Gaza and Jericho.
“Whoever thinks the subjects of the crossings is the only one in which there is a difference between our position and the Palestinians’ is, in my opinion, wrong,” Shahak told Israel Radio on Wednesday.
“We will get to other subjects that we have to agree upon, and our positions at this moment are not that close,” he said.
Palestinian sources told reporters at Taba that the new Palestinian proposals take account of understandings reached at high-level meetings in Europe and Cairo at the end of last month.
But no specific details of the proposals were divulged while the two sides were engaged in consultations with their respective leaders in Tunis and Jerusalem.
Diplomatic observers say a breakthrough, or at least a vigorous boost to the Taba talks, could well come as the result of a meeting scheduled to take place in Oslo this weekend between Peres and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat.
The two men will be in the Norwegian capital to attend the funeral of Norwegian Foreign Minister Johan Holst, who died last week following a stroke.
Holst was responsible for organizing at least 13 rounds of secret talks in Oslo between Israel and the PLO last year during which the two sides hammered out a mutual recognition pact and the Palestinian self-rule accord.
U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher is also expected to attend the funeral on Saturday, and he is expected to meet with Peres and Arafat.
“I certainly expect that the secretary would want to have an opportunity to chat with both,” State Department spokesman Mike McCurry said in Washington.
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