By Munir K. Nasser
Chief Correspondent, Washington, DC
Albawaba.com
President Bill Clinton said on Thursday that there was no point in talking further to the Israelis and Palestinians about a peace deal unless they accept his peace plan.
Clinton told reporters at the White House that all sides are operating under time constraints. He said he has told Arafat and Barak: “no point in our talking further, unless both sides agree to accept the parameters that I have laid out. Not because I am trying to dictate this but because I have listened to them for months and months for eight years.”
Clinton stressed that this is the most difficult of the issues he has dealt with and “if there is a peace agreement here I am convinced it is within the four corners I laid out.” He added that both sides have legitimately a lot of questions and want answers to them. “But there is no point in doing that unless we got a basic framework so we can close,” he stated. “The last several months have shown us this is not going to get any easier and prolonging it is going to make it worse. I am doing my best to facilitate what I think is what they want which is to try to resolve this.”
In response to questions about his peace plan, Clinton said, “This is by far the closest we have ever been” to a peace agreement. “We are much closer than we were at Camp David, but there are still differences and we are just waiting, he said. He noted that the Israelis said they would meet under these conditions within the parameters that he laid out. He said the Palestinians are consulting with other Arabs because “Arafat is not only representing his people, but the Arab world and the Muslim world on the Jerusalem issue. So he has to work through this.”
Clinton condemned the bus bombing in Tel Aviv and stressed that this violence only reminds people of what the alternative to peace is. “I expect there will be more violence in the next few days because there are a lot of enemies of peace in the Middle East,” he stated. “There are a lot of people who acquired an interest in the preservation of the status quo and the agony of the Israelis and the abject misery of most of the Palestinian population,” he said.
Meanwhile a State Department official told Albawaba.com that the US still insists on receiving an answer from Arafat in response to the Clinton proposals. “We are still waiting for an answer to the questions we asked,” he said. “The President asked them: ‘do you agree with these parameters as the basis for future negotiations?’ And what we got back was laid out concerns and questions about details that have to be hammered out.”
The official said the Palestinians sent a letter to the Consulate in Jerusalem that says they have questions about the Clinton proposals. “But right now what we are interested in is knowing the answers to the questions the President asked, which is: ‘do they agree with the parameters and the four corners that he has laid out as a basis for a future discussions?’ Until we establish what is acceptable to both sides, there is no sense in moving forward on anything,” he stressed.
According to US press reports, in a version of the letter to Clinton released Wednesday, the Palestinians raised a number of questions for clarification, which they described as key issues that could emerge as sticking points as the peace talks shift from broad principles to the details of how to implement an agreement.
Specifically, the Palestinians wanted more details about planned land transfers from Israel to the Palestinian Authority. They expressed opposition to a plan for Israel to maintain control over a corridor linking Jewish settlements that would remain in the West Bank and would cut through the heart of what would be the Palestinian state. Also, the Palestinians sought clarification of a part of the plan that would leave the land below the Haram Al-Sharif under Israeli control, if not sovereignty.
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
