US President Bill Clinton will take part in the Mideast summit in Egypt, a White House official confirmed Saturday.
"He is planning to attend," a White House spokesman said.
The official said the president will depart Sunday for the summit, which is scheduled to begin Monday.
Earlier, Clinton confirmed that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will attend a summit meeting in Egypt on Monday.
"I am very pleased that Prime Minister Barak and Chairman Arafat have accepted President Mubarak's invitation," to hold the summit in Egypt, he said.
"The summit will convene this Monday. In the meantime, we expect that both parties will do all in their power to stop the violence," Clinton said.
Clinton said "our central objectives must now be to stop the violence, to restore calm and safety, to agree on a fact-finding mechanism concerning how this began and how it can be prevented from happening again, and find a way back to dialogue and negotiations."
Clinton, however, downplayed the prospects for an agreement.
"We should be under no illusions," he said. "The good news is the parties have agreed to meet and the situation appears to be calmer, but the path ahead is difficult. The situation is still quite tense.” – WASHINGTON (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
