World

Clinton Rejoins Mideast Talks

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

October 21, 1998 / 11:45 PM EDT / CBS

President Clinton returned to the troubled Mideast peace talks Thursday to try to close a land-for-security accord between Israel and the Palestinians. "The hardest decisions now, at last, are on the table," he said.

Mr. Clinton rejoined the discussions on Maryland's Eastern shore after a week of hard bargaining that saw a grenade attack on an Israeli bus station and a threat by Israelis to bolt the summit in the middle of the night Wednesday.

Middle East negotiators hoped to produce the final draft of a peace agreement on Thursday after marathon bargaining sessions Wednesday night.

Earier, Netanyahu told Jewish leaders that the Israelis were "not suckers" and would quit the talks unless Palestinians fulfilled a promise to fight terrorism.

"It's time to have commitments fulfilled. No runaround. I was elected to make a secure peace. We have every right to demand that they fight terrorism," he said, according to a statement issued by his office in Jerusalem Thursday.

White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said a deal was still possible despite Wednesday's tough talk by both sides.

"We wouldn't be still working at this if we didn't think there was a chance to reach an agreement on the interim issues and to move to final status [issues]," he said.

Despite averting the collapse of the talks Wednesday and signs that gaps between the two sides were narrowing, U.S. officials refrained from overly optimistic predictions.

"There is still plenty of work to do," State Department spokesman James Rubin said. "This is one of those situations in which one doesn't have any optimism until it's over, and it isn't over."

But he said negotiators, working through the night, were expected to conclude work on "something resembling the final text" on Thursday.

One Israeli official, noting that the threat of a walkout by Netanyahu had given the talks a new sense of urgency, said he believed Thursday would be "the decisive day."

The summit has centered on a proposal that Israel withdraw from more of the West Bank in exchange for Palestinian security guarantees.

In his statement, Netanyahu said that for Israel to cede 13 percent more of the West Bank, Palestinians had to arrest terrorists, collect weapons, extradite murderers, and provide a list of concrete steps and a timetable for a security crackdown.

President Clinton kicked off the Middle East summit with Netanyahu and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat at the White House exactly one week ago, and if the all-night discussions went well, he could preside over a signing ceremony with both leaders on Thursday afternoon.

Concluding work on the draft text of the accord (a document numbering fewer than 20 pages) would be a step in the right direction, Rubin said, but Netanyahu and Arafat still needed to sign off on the language of the agreement.

"Cearly, the handing over of the text is another phase in the process. That's significant in its own right. But whether it leads to an agreement is an open question," Rubin said.

Netanyahu gave the week-long peace talks a jolt with his threat to fly back to Israel Wednesday evening if substantial progress was not made, going so far as to send the delegation's bags to Andrews Air Force Base.

He changed his mind after a meeting late Wednesday that included Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai, Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan and CIA Director George Tenet, sources close to the talks said.

During that meeting, the Palestinians reiterated the commitments they had made and put down on paper during negotiations Tuesday, but they also agreed to give the Israelis a more detailed security plan within 30 days.

"We promised that within a month we will give them a copy of our security plan," one Palestinian negotiator said, noting that the offer had initially been made on Wednesday morning.

The document that negotiators are focusing on Thursday touches upon Israeli troop withdrawals from the West Bank, opening an airport and seaport in Gaza and providing safe passage between Palestinian enclaves.

Netanyahu has agreed to a withdrawal from another 13 percent of the West Bank, including a nature preserve that would remain undeveloped. The Palestinians now fully or partially control 27 percent of the land won by Israel in a 1967 war.

A land-for-security agreement could leave Netanyahu in a precarious political situation at home. Right-wing members of his fragile governing coalition have threatened to end his rule if he cedes too much land to Palestinians.