Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin stated flatly this week that Syria is still not ready to engage in serious peace talks.
Speaking before the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday, Rabin added that he would support any further attempts by U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher — who visited the region twice in May — to broker a peace with Syria.
He noted, however, that the United States could do little more to bridge the gap between Jerusalem and Damascus.
“We have an interest in Christopher coming to the region every so often, but I believe Washington has exhausted itself,” Rabin said.
During the committee session, Rabin strongly denied newspaper reports which stated that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had insisted he heard Rabin say he was ready to withdraw from every inch of the Golan Heights in exchange for peace with Syria.
“Stuff and nonsense!” said the prime minister. “I never said anything like that to Mubarak. Not to him and not to the Syrians.”
Rabin was challenged at the hearing by Likud Knesset member Ze’ev Binyamin Begin to comment on widespread rumors that Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat intends to visit Jerusalem when he travels to the Jericho autonomous district.
Rabin countered that he would not favor such a visit at the moment, but he could not say what he might feel about it in two years’ time, when negotiations on the final status of Jerusalem are slated to start.
He added that Arafat has so far made no official request to Israel to fix a date for his much talked-of visit to Jericho.
PLO officials had previously announced that Arafat intended to make the visit to Jericho in mid-June.
Rabin also told the committee that the Israeli authorities have placed strict limits on the movements of the Palestinian chief of internal security in Jericho, Jabril Rajub.
He said Rajub’s movements had been confined to the autonomous Palestinian entity in Jericho after Rajub gave what were seen as highly provocative interviews to Arab reporters in eastern Jerusalem.
In one of these interviews, Rajub was quoted as saying that those opposed to the peace process must continue the armed struggle against it.
Rajub has refused to comment: on the order confining him to Jericho.
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