Egypt and Jordan are working on proposals aimed at reducing the violence in the Palestinian territories and clearing the way for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, diplomats said Wednesday.
"The first question is how to reduce the violence, in order to pave the way for a resumption of negotiations and try to reach an agreement before the end of US President Bill Clinton's term in January," an Arab diplomat told AFP.
The proposals under study "take into consideration an initiative from France and Britain," another diplomatic source told AFP on condition he not be named.
Paris and London proposed to the United Nations the dispatch of international observers to the territories to lower the violence that has claimed more than 320 lives since September 28.
After Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met here Tuesday with a US-led fact-finding mission now probing the causes of the violence, his Foreign Minister Amr Moussa said a resumption of negotiations should not be ruled out.
The Israeli newspaper Maariv said Egypt and Jordan have offered Israel a plan aimed at restarting the negotiations.
The newspaper added that Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami met Monday in Paris with Mubarak's top advisor Ossama el-Baz, who presented him with the plan.
There was no confirmation in Cairo of the meeting.
In Jerusalem, a senior Israeli official denied the existence of a Jordanian and Egyptian proposal.
Ben Ami visited Paris at the start of the week for a short private visit, the French foreign ministry said.
Maariv said earlier in the week that Ben Ami was to meet secretly in Paris with a senior Palestinian official, apparently the minister for international cooperation, Nabil Shaath, in the presence of an Arab mediator.
The meeting was aimed at reaching a compromise on the status of a site in east Jerusalem holy to both Muslims and Jews, a sticking point linked to the failure of the Camp David summit in July.
The site, known as Haram al-Sherif to Muslims and Temple Mount to Jews, is also where the violence erupted when Israel's right-wing opposition leader Ariel Sharon made a controversial visit on September 28 -- CAIRO (AFP)
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