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July 25, 2000
THURMONT, Maryland (AP) - Plunging into talks immediately upon returning to Camp David, President Bill Clinton is weighing whether there was potential for a peace accord to be struck at the Mideast summit. Clinton arrived back at the presidential retreat Sunday evening after a quick four-day trip to Japan for an economic summit. After a briefing by his own team, he went into separate talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters. On the basis of those talks, the president would decide whether it was worthwhile to continue, the spokesman indicated. "We expect meetings into the night," Boucher said late Sunday. "A lot depends on his meetings and how he wants to move forward." As the contentious talks hit the two-week mark - Monday was the 14th day - the main point of dispute remained Jerusalem, the holy city claimed by both Israel and the Palestinians as a capital. "The ball is in the Israeli court," said Hassan Abdel Rahman, Washington envoy of the Palestine Liberation Organization and a frequent spokesman during the talks. "Will they do what is needed to reach an agreement? Or will they stick to their unacceptable positions?" Israeli spokesman Gadi Baltiansky suggested it was the Palestinians who would need to make concessions to move matters forward. With Clinton's return, he said, "We will try to see if there are grounds for continuing this effort." Last week, U.S. officials declared prematurely that the summit had ended without an agreement. In view of that, Boucher said, "one hesitates to make any kind of prediction." While there is no formal deadline for wrapping up the talks, the spokesman said the U.S. mediation effort could not continue indefinitely. "We are not here for an unlimited period of time," he said. The American mediators have declined to discuss the substance of the peace talks, but Boucher said the tenor of negotiations - centering on the status of Jerusalem, the fate of several million Palestinian refugees and the borders of a future Palestinian state - had not changed. "It continues to be very hard, and we continue to try to move forward," Boucher said. "We might reach a deal; we might not." He refused to comment on Vatican proposals for a special international status for Jerusalem's holy sites. Pope John Paul II said Sunday that only world oversight could safeguard the rights of Christian, Jewish and Muslim worshippers.
"We know that Jerusalem is special - the great faiths of the world have holy sites in it, and take a lot of interest in it," Boucher said. He declined to elaborate. Meanwhile, talks on secondary issues that Israeli and Palestinian teams had held at nearby Emmitsburg, Maryland, had gone as far as they could, Boucher said. Those negotiations had focused on side issues including water and civil administration. On another subject, an Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, denied reports that the case of Jonathan Jay Pollard, a U.S. Navy intelligence analyst imprisoned for spying for Israel, was among issues on the table at Camp David. Israel has long pressed for Pollard's release. Boucher refused comment on whether Pollard's case had been brought up in the talks, saying he could not answer questions dealing with "what might or might not be discussed up there." On the Net: State Department Mideast summit site: http://www.state.gov/www/regions/nea/cdavid-summit.html
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