Pledge Fails To Jump-Start Middle East Peace Talks Palestinians Say They’ll Try To Stop Terrorism; U.S. Says Impasse Continues

A high-level Palestinian delegation told U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Thursday that Yasser Arafat’s government will exert maximum effort to stop terrorism. But that pledge - as yet untested - was not enough to break the stalemate in the Middle East peace process.

“I think it is clear that the Palestinian Authority is taking steps to thwart terrorism,” State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said after Thursday’s meeting, called to allow Albright to brief the Palestinians on President Clinton’s talks earlier this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Nevertheless, Burns said, “the United States believes that these talks are at an impasse.” The administration has not decided what to do next, he said.

Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian negotiator, told reporters following the meeting that Arafat’s government “has been exerting more than 100 percent effort to stop the cycle of violence.” He dismissed Netanyahu’s charges of a Palestinian “green light” for suicide bombers as nothing more than propaganda.

In a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors a few hours before her meeting with the Palestinians, Albright said the Arabs and Israelis have lost the confidence in each other that is the basis for a successful peace process. She called on each side to take steps to rebuild that trust.

But neither Netanyahu nor the Palestinian delegation has offered a hint of anything they might do to ease tensions. Instead, each side outlined a long list of confidence-building measures it wants the other side to take.

Even Erekat’s pledge to curb terrorism is likely to anger the Israelis because he insisted that no change is needed in Palestinian Authority policies, which he said always have been designed to stop terrorism.

Assessing this week’s Middle East diplomacy, Burns said, “If you are looking for a silver lining, we have had very serious and comprehensive talks.” But, he added, “I can’t say that we have moved far down the road toward resumption of the talks.

Burns said the Clinton administration considers the Israelis and the Palestinians equally responsible for the impasse.

Earlier in the day, Hannan Ashrawi, Arafat’s minister of higher education, called on the United States - or the European Union if Washington is unwilling to act - to exert pressure on Israel to stop construction of the Har Homa housing project and end other actions that the Palestinians say are intended to pre-empt negotiations.