Israel, Plo Report A Little Progress In Talks

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators announced their first modest agreements Thursday since a deadly terrorist attack in January brought movement toward Palestinian self-rule to a virtual halt.

The progress was largely symbolic. Its centerpiece was a promise to try, by July 1, to reach a consensus on the manner in which Palestinians will hold elections and Israel’s army will make a long-promised withdrawal from the cities of the occupied West Bank.

Even so, Thursday’s meeting between Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was conspicuously warmer than other recent contacts between the two sides.

That was enough to brighten the arrival here of Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who began his eighth Middle East shuttle mission at a moment of no small gloom in regional diplomacy.