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"Egypt plays key role in Jerusalem's compromise" |
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August 24, 2000
JERUSALEM (AP) - Egypt is key to crafting a compromise on Jerusalem and is not expected to support hard-line resolutions on the future of the disputed city at next week's Islamic conference, the chief Israeli negotiator said Wednesday. Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are stalled over the future of Jerusalem. The Palestinians want sovereignty in the eastern sector, home to major Muslim, Christian and Jewish shrines, but Israel refuses to relinquish all control. In recent days, Egypt has intensified mediation efforts, searching for a compromise that would be acceptable to the Arab world as well as Israel. However, a senior Palestinian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said such a formula has so far eluded Egyptian leaders. The chief Israeli negotiator, acting Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, was to meet Thursday in Alexandria with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa. On Saturday, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was to hold talks with Egyptian leaders. Ben-Ami said Wednesday that Jordan's King Abdullah, who visited Israel and the Palestinian areas on Tuesday, did not raise new ideas concerning Jerusalem. "It is the government of Egypt that is playing the main role in locating formulae with regard to Jerusalem," Ben-Ami told Israel army radio. "I assume they (the Egyptians) will want to discuss their formulae with me." Ben-Ami played down concerns that at Monday's meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Morocco, hard-line resolutions will be passed. "I think that the Egyptians, who are today trying to work out formulae, will have an interest that the conference not adopt resolutions which will end the negotiations for ever," Ben-Ami said. "Therefore, I think we should take a cautiously optimistic view of what is going on in the Arab world." Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have been meeting sporadically, most recently Wednesday evening, to review the ideas raised at July's Mideast summit at Camp David, but that no new proposals have been made. Both Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak accuse each other of intransigence regarding Jerusalem, and say they will not budge. "We will not accept any compromise on (east) Jerusalem and Jerusalem should be under Palestinian sovereignty," Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a top Arafat adviser, said Wednesday. In the Gaza Strip camp of Rafah, meanwhile, about 200 teen-age supporters of Arafat's Fatah movement, some brandishing pistols and small axes, marched through the streets to mark the 31st anniversary of the attempted torching of Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque by a deranged Australian tourist. "This is a clear message to Israel and especially to Prime Minister Barak that we are ready to throw away the olive branch and to carry our machine guns and liberate Jerusalem," said Abdel Raouf Barbaq, a Fatah organizer in Rafah. "We supported peace in the beginning, but patience is limited," he said. |
