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."