Shimon Peres visits Jakarta, Yasser Arafat to follow

JAKARTA (JP): President Abdurrahman Wahid said on Tuesday that he had met with Israeli envoy Shimon Peres to assist with facilitating the collapsed Middle East peace talks and was expecting Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat later in the day.

"Yesterday (Monday) I had breakfast with Shimon Peres from Israel. I can't divulge the content of the meeting because it would wreck everything," Abdurrahman told a media conference at the Bina Graha presidential office.

The President said Jakarta's involvement in the peace talks was designed to "break the ice and to begin a new negotiation."

"(Tonight) we will have another visitor and that is Yasser Arafat, who is now in China," he said.

Presidential Press Secretary Dharmawan Ronodipuro said Arafat was scheduled to arrive at Halim Perdanakusuma Airport at 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

A press briefing is scheduled after Arafat meets with Abdurrahman at Merdeka Palace on Wednesday morning, Dharmawan told The Jakarta Post.

Meanwhile, Antara quoted a presidential staffer late Tuesday night as saying that Arafat was expected to arrive here Wednesday morning -- one day later than originally scheduled.

"Arafat was to fly to Jakarta from Malaysia on Tuesday evening, but because of engine trouble, the flight had to be delayed until Wednesday," said Wahyu Muryadi, a protocol official at the presidential office.

Arafat left China for Vietnam on Tuesday morning on a regional tour that will also take him to Malaysia and Japan.

Former Israeli prime minister Peres, now regional cooperation minister, is the latest senior official from Israel to visit Jakarta. Indonesia does not have formal diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.

Commenting on the failure of the two-week U.S.-sponsored Camp David summit, Abdurrahman said it was due to the fact that "only one kind of sovereignty" was discussed between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

"So, in my view, we should differentiate between administrative sovereignty (over Jerusalem), which will be in the hands of the Israelis, and political sovereignty, which will be decided by a committee of seven states," he said.

The committee, the President said, groups Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinians, Israel and the United Nations.

The Camp David meeting broke down on July 25 mainly over differences over the status of Jerusalem.

The Palestinians insist that East Jerusalem be the capital of the future Palestinian state, while Israel refuses any division of the city. East Jerusalem contains Islam's third holiest site and Judaism's most sacred shrine.

Since the Camp David summit, Arafat has been touring some 20 countries but has not won the support he had hoped for, either for his plan to proclaim an independent Palestinian state on Sept. 13, or for his sovereignty claims over the eastern part of Jerusalem, annexed by Israel in June 1967.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak hinted on Sunday that the proclamation of an independent state might be put off.

Israel and the United States have been putting pressure on Arafat to avoid any unilateral action and to continue to explore the possibility of a permanent settlement.

Several Israeli senior officials have visited Indonesia in the past, despite the lack of formal ties, including the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1992.

Peres, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 with Rabin and Arafat, is a close friend of Abdurrahman and heads the Shimon Peres Center in which the President sits as a member of the executive board.

Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab said last week that Indonesia would endorse Arafat's plan to declare an independent state of Palestine next month.

But Alwi also said that Indonesia would like to see Israel and Palestine continue peace talks to resolve their problems.

Iraq's visit

Separately, Alwi said on Tuesday that President Abdurrahman would proceed with his planned trip to Iraq and meet with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"If Gus Dur (President Abdurrahman) goes to Iraq, please do not see (the visit) only from a political (point of view), but also from a humanistic one," he said.

President Abdurrahman has ignored US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's "advice" to cancel the planned visit, saying that he would not be bowed by US objections to the visit.

"We are not a lackey of the US. We are free to go anywhere," the President said over the weekend.

Alwi, however, expressed his belief that the US government would not isolate Jakarta if the President does go to Baghdad.

"Indonesia wants to see the trade embargo lifted very soon.

"But, we also call on Iraq to meet the United Nations' conditions," he said. (byg)