Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Albright Agrees To Accelerate Pace Of Middle East Talks

Robin Wright And Rebecca Trounson Los Angeles Times

After seven months of behind-the-scenes diplomacy, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is now prepared to commit to accelerated, high-profile Mideast peace talks, aimed at concluding a final deal between Israel and the Palestinians up to a year earlier than the May 1999 target, according to U.S. officials.

Albright will propose advancing both the pace and the agenda when she makes her first trip to the region as secretary of state at the end of the month. Her initial goal will be to set up mechanisms for concluding the complex process launched in 1993, officials said.

The idea of accelerating the negotiations was publicly proposed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last October, although the idea was originally broached by U.S. officials concerned that the peace process was getting bogged down.

“It became clear to us that either we do it the hard way - negotiating foot by foot - or we can go to the end game that includes the big final issues as well as stages of the withdrawal” still at issue in the current phase of talks, a senior U.S. official said.

The Palestinians have been reluctant to leap to the “permanent status” talks for fear of appearing to cave in to Netanyahu and of losing leverage over the amount of land turned over to them in the West Bank during the two remaining Israeli troop withdrawals. They also have feared that Israel might use accelerated talks to avoid fulfilling obligations remaining under existing peace deals. But they now appear to agree.

“They recognize it’s in their interest to get it done early,” the U.S. official said. “The more time that passes, the greater the dangers on a lot of fronts.”

Among the dangers are more terrorist attacks - which harden official and public Israeli positions - and disillusionment among Palestinians about the slowness of peace dividends in the form of better living standards, more jobs and self-determination.

Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians’ chief negotiator with Israel, said he was not averse to accelerating the talks on the toughest issues that divide the two sides. “But these talks should be in parallel with implementing the existing agreements,” he said. “They should not take the place of those agreements.”

The U.S. and Israeli proposals to accelerate the talks differ. Netanyahu proposed moving directly to talks entailing the status of Palestinian statehood, Jerusalem, Israeli settlements and Palestinian refugees. Albright is proposing consolidation of the interim issues, specifically Israeli troop withdrawals from additional territory in the West Bank, and final settlement issues.

“We are not implying that the parties should forgo implementation of other aspects of the agreements they’ve already reached,” said State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin. “We’re not trying to leave behind the requirement for steps to be taken in areas like the (Palestinian) seaport, airport, safe passage (between Gaza and the West Bank) and further redeployment” of Israeli troops.

A specific timetable for accelerated talks is up to the two sides, Clinton administration sources say. Netanyahu originally suggested the talks should be concluded within six months. Although U.S. officials stress that they have no formula, they said six to nine months is a reasonable goal.

To get the process going again, senior U.S. mediator Dennis Ross, who this weekend begins talks in Jerusalem with each side, will attempt to persuade Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to cooperate with Israel on three specific security issues: providing lists of people believed to be involved in anti-Israeli and extremist activities, swapping general information on security concerns and ending the “revolving door” policy of detaining and then releasing extremist suspects.

Palestinian officials, for example, have not provided Israel with names of those arrested in either the West Bank or Gaza, U.S. officials said.

The administration is particularly frustrated with Arafat because he was specifically and repeatedly warned by senior U.S., Jordanian and Egyptian officials in the weeks before the deadly July double-suicide bombing that killed 13 Israelis that he was “playing with fire that was going to blow up in his face,” an administration official said.

Since the bombing, U.S. officials have repeatedly asked Arafat and his security chiefs to move forcefully against the infrastructure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, militant Islamic groups virulently opposed to the peace accords with Israel - as he did after a series of deadly attacks in 1996.

The administration now hopes that the prospect of Albright’s intervention to win political compromise - and now sooner rather than later - will persuade Arafat to cooperate.

In exchange, the United States is making clear to the Israeli government that further Jewish settlement construction is not conducive to progress in the peace process.