Israeli, PLO Officials Meet in Oslo to Address Impasse

Israeli and PLO negotiators flew to Oslo on Saturday for high-level talks on resolving the impasse over Palestinian autonomy, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.

Israel radio reported that meetings began late Saturday, but Israeli officials would not confirm the report. Jan Egeland, Norway’s deputy foreign minister, said meetings would be held today and Monday.

Egeland was part of the small Norwegian team that hosted months of secret talks between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization that culminated in the historic Sept. 13 signing of a peace agreement in Washington.

A meeting last Sunday between PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin ended without results, except agreement to talk again in 10 days.

“We have a crisis in the negotiations,” Egeland said. “I hope and believe the parties will make it through, but there will be rough seas.”

“The counterforces are enormous on both the Palestinian side and on the Israeli side,” he added.

Since the accord was signed, 46 Palestinians and 14 Israelis have died in violence related to opposition to the agreement.

Under the Israeli-PLO accord on limited autonomy in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip and Jericho in the West Bank, Israeli troop withdrawal was to have begun last Monday, with the pullout and hand-over of authority to the PLO completed by April 13.

But Monday passed without changes on the ground because the two sides disagree on crucial issues, including control over border crossings from Jordan and Egypt into the autonomous areas.

PLO sources in Tunis, Tunisia, said their delegation, led by Yasser Abed-Rabbo, a close Arafat aide, would meet Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in Oslo.

Among the Israeli negotiators will be senior Foreign Ministry officials and the dovish environment minister, Yossi Sarid, an Israeli official in Jerusalem said on condition of anonymity.

Israeli radio reports said the PLO’s Nabil Shaath and Israel’s Brig. Gen. Amnon Shahak, who headed the talks until now, also would attend.

The two sides will try to reach agreement before midweek, when Rabin and Arafat are tentatively scheduled to meet again in Cairo.

Egeland will lead the conference in place of Foreign Minister Johan Jorgen Holst, hospitalized Thursday after suffering a stroke. Holst is credited with brokering the Israeli-PLO peace agreement.