A high-ranking Palestinian official said Monday that a US team was working on a position paper aimed at salvaging the Middle East peace deal, which stalled over the sovereignty of Jerusalem, reported The Associated Press.
Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath, in the United States for consultations on the peace process, said the paper would probably be completed by the end of this week, added the agency.
"The paper would be comprehensive," Shaath said in a phone interview from New York, where he is attending the opening of this year's session of the UN General Assembly.
"It will include the positions given by the two sides at Camp David and offer ideas to bridge the gaps between the two positions on the issues where there are still differences."
Also in New York, Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami said the Clinton administration was expected to "assess" the status of the peace process after separate talks this week with Palestinian and Israeli negotiators, according to the agency.
It would then decide whether there is ground "for a possible brief and conclusive endgame, or for further fine-tuning ... or saying that the peace process has come to an end in its present form and we need to devise alternative ways," Ben-Ami said.
In a conversation at a Council on Foreign Relations luncheon in New York, the minister said Palestinians and Israelis need to come to agreement by mid-October "at the latest."
"This is not the moment for further negotiations. It is the moment of decision for leaders," he added.
Talks broke down over Jerusalem during US-mediated peace efforts in July at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.
Each side has accused the other of backtracking on proposals made at Camp David and progress had been deemed unlikely before the United States issued its own bridging proposals, the AP said.
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak ruled out Islamic sovereignty over a key Jerusalem shrine sacred to Muslims and Jews, formally rejecting a Palestinian compromise proposal, the AP noted.
"Israel is not only opposed to transferring sovereignty on the Temple Mount to the Palestinians, but it is also absolutely opposed to transferring sovereignty on the Mount to any Muslim body," Barak told his Cabinet.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, when told of Barak's response, said, wagging his finger: "It's not up to him to decide."
Arafat, who met Monday with Christian leaders in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, said it was not up to Israel to decide who will be sovereign over the Old City's shrines. "This is a Muslim, Christian and Arab decision," he said - Albawaba.com
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