Shimon Peres visits Jakarta, Yasser Arafat to follow

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)