World

Mideast Peace Gets A Boost

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

August 11, 1999 / 6:53 AM EDT / CBS

In a sign that stalled peace moves may be getting back on track, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat accepted a proposed October start date for Israel to carry out a promised pullback from the West Bank, a Palestinian official said Tuesday night.

The decision may help break a deadlock that had pushed back a planned visit to the region by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

But Arafat coupled his agreement to an October pullback with a demand that Israel then follow the timetable laid out in a U.S.-brokered peace pact, the Palestinian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Arafat's deputy, Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, gave Prime Minister Ehud Barak the message from Arafat in a secret meeting Monday night, the official said. Arafat told Barak in a letter that all obligations under the Wye River accord Â"should be implemented fully and by November,Â" the official said.

The apparent progress comes amid heightened fears of attacks by extremists. On Tuesday, a West Bank Palestinian inspired by assassinated Hamas bombmaker Yahya Ayyash rammed his car into a group of Israeli soldiers. Several were injured Â– one woman seriously Â– before the assailant was killed during a second attempt to hit the soldiers.

Additionally, a West Bank Jewish settler was injured in the hip by gunfire aimed at his car.

Israel sealed off several West Bank villages and warned Israelis to be ready for an increase in attacks.

"The motivation of Hamas and Islamic Jihad has not decreased and we are witnessing a period in which there are definitely more attacks," said Yitzhak Eitan, commander of Israeli army forces in the West Bank.

The Wye accord, reached last fall in Maryland, centers on Israeli territorial concessions in exchange for Palestinian moves to boost security.

Arafat insisted that Wye-negotiated withdrawals from 13.1 percent of the West Bank be completed by the end of November -- within the agreement's timeline.

Arguing that the Wye withdrawals would make isolated Israeli enclaves vulnerable to peace-wrecking attacks, Barak has proposed postponing a final 6.5 percent withdrawal to February 2000. He wants it to coincide with a statement of principles on so-called final status issues -- the toughest issues left to be resolved, such as sovereignty over Jerusalem, the fate of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the borders of any Palestinian state.

In the letter, Arafat Â"refused any combining of the third phase of the interim agreement into the final status negotiations,Â" the Palestinian official said.

Barak has repeatedly promised to implement the Wye accord in full, but the timetable has been the subject of dispute. Tuesday marked the end of the two-week period Barak had given Arafat to consider his proposal.

Albright is now due in the region at the beginning of September, the State Department said Monday. She had spoken over the weekend with both Bara and Arafat.