US Secretary of State Colin Powell phoned Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres Sunday to tell him his planned meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was "urgent", a Peres spokesman said.
Yoram Dori told AFP that Powell had told Peres it was "urgent for the meeting to take place" and had pressed him to "continue his efforts to establish a cease-fire" between Israel and the Palestinians.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vetoed the scheduled meeting Sunday, despite a day of relative calm on the ground and heavy international pressure for the talks to go ahead.
"Yasser Arafat has not passed the test of 48 hours of total calm that the prime minister set last Sunday as a condition for a Peres-Arafat meeting," said a high-ranking Israeli official, who asked not to be named.
But the Israeli government's secretary, Gideon Saar said during a cabinet meeting Sunday morning that Sharon was "not opposed to the principle" of the meeting.
The United States, in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks which killed thousands of people in New York and Washington, have urged Israel not to obstruct efforts to build an international coalition against terrorism and to press on with the Peres-Arafat meeting.
It was under US pressure that Israel and the Palestinians declared nearly a week ago a cease-fire, which has since been shaken by renewed violence -- JERUSALEM (AFP)
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