Barak said to accept U.S. proposal

Barak said to accept U.S. proposal

THURMONT, Maryland (Reuters): Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has accepted a U.S. proposal for shared rule in Arab East Jerusalem, one of his ministers said on Friday, but the Palestinians said it fell far short of their demand for full sovereignty.

Israeli cabinet minister Michael Melchior said in television interviews from Jerusalem that the proposal was offered during the Camp David summit, which entered its 11th day on Friday without any sign of a breakthrough.

U.S. President Bill Clinton, expected to cut short a visit to Japan for a Group of Eight summit to return to the peace talks on Sunday, told reporters in Okinawa the two sides were still trying to hammer out an agreement and he was hopeful.

Melchior, who was part of Barak's public relations team at the talks outside Washington, confirmed what Israeli officials in the United States had been saying privately during a virtual news blackout on the negotiations.

"We're talking about a U.S. proposal which accepts the Israeli sovereignty over all of Jerusalem as an undivided city and has some signs of joint sovereignty, expanded self-administration, of some of the Arab Muslim quarters in the outskirts of Jerusalem," Melchior told BBC World television.

Israeli and Palestinian officials have given differing accounts of the American ideas, while U.S. officials have declined comment.

Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi urged caution and said Melchior was talking about matters that were not yet public, adding the gaps between the sides were still wide.

"I don't think we can read too much into the American proposal, especially since it was not made public. The issue of Jerusalem still remains a very difficult issue and I think that the solution has to be maintained on the basis of international law," Ashrawi said in an interview with CNN.

Sovereignty

"What the Israelis are trying to do is find formulations whereby they would maintain an illegal Israeli sovereignty over occupied Jerusalem... We don't want to fragment East Jerusalem," she said.

Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. It has insisted that Jerusalem be its undivided capital, but Palestinians want East Jerusalem as their future capital.

Palestinian sources said President Yasser Arafat would not accept anything less that full sovereignty for East Jerusalem. The delegation was still aiming for a comprehensive agreement.

Under the U.S. proposal, Israel would add some Jewish West Bank settlements to Jerusalem while Palestinian neighborhoods such as Shuafat could be jointly controlled, Melchior said.

Melchior said shared control would mean more for Palestinians than mere self-administration of such tasks as garbage collection.

The U.S. proposal would also freeze for several years the status quo in Jerusalem's walled Old City, home to key holy sites for Christians, Jews and Muslims, until a permanent solution could be negotiated, an Israeli official said.

The proposal would also offer Palestinians some form of safe passage to the Old City's Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, Islam's third- holiest site. Melchior said discussions were under way for a sort of joint religious administration over holy sites.

Speaking in Japan, Clinton said he was bound to observe the news blackout and could not give details but he was hopeful. "All I can say is that they're still talking and, consistent with our rules, I'm still not talking, but I'm hopeful," Clinton told reporters when asked if he was optimistic about the peace talks.

Before Clinton arrived in Okinawa, the White House said it was hoping to "compress" the president's schedule there so he could quickly resume his stewardship of the summit, which he has called the hardest negotiations he has ever tackled.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, working to keeping the talks moving forward until Clinton returns from Japan, twice met separately with both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on Thursday.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher would not say if the sides were any closer to resolving their differences over core issues such as Jerusalem, refugees and borders, but said they were continuing to deal "with great seriousness and sometimes in great detail with these issues."

"The secretary shares the president's determination to move forward on the issues," Boucher told reporters in Thurmont, Maryland, near Camp David. "The effort is certainly not slackened in any way."