After meeting in Bucharest, Romania, this week, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat both sounded fairly upbeat.
Both seemed to anticipate a successful conclusion by next week of the remaining security questions being discussed at the ongoing negotiations in Cairo for implementing Palestinian self – rule in the Gaza Strip and West Bank town of Jericho.
“We are at the beginning of the end (of the negotiations), and we are trying to find a way how to complete this great historic voyage of the Palestinian people and the Israeli people,” Peres told reporters.
“I am sure we are at the end of the slow march that we have so worked so hard at,” said Arafat.
Peres and Arafat were in the Romanian capital to co-chair a forum on economic prospects in the Middle East.
Some political observers here are saying Arafat wants to hold off a final signing ceremony with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin until after the South African elections next week and that country’s May 10 presidential inauguration, in order to maximize world media coverage and gain additional support for Palestinian self-rule.
Arafat arrived in Bucharest on Wednesday after a two-day visit to Moscow, where Russian leaders have been attempting to reassert their prominence in world affairs.
Arafat ended his visit to Moscow on Wednesday armed with a promise of Russian assistance for the establishment of a Palestinian police force in the areas set to come under Palestinian self-rule.
The agreement was the result of talks between Arafat and Russian Interior Minister Viktor Yerin, according to an Interior Ministry spokesmen. The spokesmen said Russia would provide practical help with the Palestinian police, but provided no details.
Arafat also met with President Boris Yeltsin in the Grand Kremlin Palace.
After their meeting Yeltsin said to Arafat, “Russia is trying to support you politically, especially now, after the PLO negotiations with Israel.”
Yeltsin also said he understood the “PLO’s claims against Israel.”
Following talks with Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, the PLO leader said he had expressed concern about Israel’s failure to comply with the schedule for its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and Jericho.
Under the autonomy agreement signed in September, Israel was to have completed the withdrawal by April 13.
In comments to reporters, Arafat said that unless Israel withdraws quickly from Gaza and Jericho, the Middle East may soon resemble the complex and bloody mess in the Balkans.
“The deadlines have passed with nothing complete on the ground. Unless we succeed in the peace the alternative is complete anarchy in the region and Balkanization,” he said.
He told reporters he would welcome the deployment of Russian observers in Hebron and other areas as part of a team of international observers.
Peres and Arafat will reportedly travel to Cairo next week to help conclude the ongoing negotiations there.
Their optimism that the talks could be wrapped up next week was echoed in the Egyptian capital, where this week’s negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian teams ended on an upbeat note.
Still causing tension between the two sides are the issues of legal jurisdiction in the territories and certain security matters such as joint patrols, crossing points and passage between the Gaza Strip and Jericho, the two areas first slated for Palestinian autonomy.
Some of these issues may need further clarification by a joint liaison team after the agreement is signed.
But the Rabin-Arafat signing also depends on the progress of talks on economic issues being held in Paris, where “very serious problems remain to be solved,” according to Israeli Finance Minister Avraham Shohat.
“Last week’s talks went very well and we started this week’s session on a very optimistic note,” said Shohat, who heads the Israeli negotiating team at the Paris talks. “But to my regret, the Palestinians have made demands that we can under no circumstances accede to.
“We are being very fair towards them, because we want to see these talks through to a successful conclusion. But we can’t sacrifice basic interests,” said Shohat.
Among the issues causing dissent is a Palestinian demand that the areas falling under Palestinian self-rule be allowed to trade with any state that they choose, including those that have no trade relations with Israel and those that practice “dumping” of their goods below the usual selling price.
Such dumping could threaten to flood the Israeli market with cheap goods, since the borders between Israel and the autonomous regions will be open to free trade.
Shohat said Thursday the two sides will attempt to close the gap between their positions.
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