Israel and PLO Still Divided on Border Control

Israeli spokesmen said Wednesday that negotiators have reached “a meeting of the minds” on key stumbling blocks to an accord on Palestinian self-rule, but the tentative agreement met a cool reception from the Palestinian leadership and both sides said more talks are needed.

After nearly three days of exhausting meetings, the heads of the two delegations said they have come to a possible agreement on how much of Jericho the Palestinians will control once Israeli troops begin their withdrawal.

And while Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said the negotiators also agreed on a framework for the equally troubling issue of border control and “some items” concerning the Gaza Strip, the Palestine Liberation Organization leadership signaled that it still is not satisfied with giving primary responsibility on frontier crossings to Israel.

A breakthrough that seemed in view when negotiators rushed to Cairo airport before dawn to present PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat with a tentative accord appeared to be put on at least temporary hold when they returned to their hotel rooms at sunup, empty-handed.

The PLO Executive Committee, meeting at its headquarters in Tunisia several hours later, accused Israel of delaying an accord by insisting on retaining border control, a point the PLO considers crucial to asserting a measure of independence and eliminating humiliating searches of Palestinians entering the occupied territories.

“A typical day in the Middle East,” Israeli Police Minister Moshe Shahal said after it was over. “So, there is no disagreement but no agreement, either. We will need a lot of patience.”

Still, both sides continued to suggest that a final accord is possible in the coming week. Negotiators will continue meeting in Taba, the Egyptian resort on the Gulf of Aqaba, over the next several days while the leaderships officially consider the proposed compromises.

Peres and the chief PLO negotiator, Mahmoud Abbas, were both upbeat after their final session Wednesday afternoon. They said answers from Tunis and Tel Aviv will come “simultaneously” within a few days.

“The two delegations have reached a meeting of the minds on the three or four major issues, which (are) the passages on the bridge (borders), the Jericho area and some items concerning the Gaza Strip,” Peres told reporters, saying he hopes the leadership of the PLO and Israel will endorse the accord, “the sooner the better.”

Abbas, standing at Peres’ side, also predicted that a full accord could be reached.

“I think the talks here were very constructive. There are ideas, and these ideas are now being discussed by the leaderships,” he said. “We will continue in the negotiations, and we hope to reach a full agreement around the points that we have mentioned, specifically the issue of the border crossings, the issue of Gaza, and the issue of Jericho.”

Arafat flew to Cairo on Wednesday night for the third time in four days, this time for a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who has strongly urged the Palestinians to reach a compromise that will allow a five-year interim period of autonomy to commence soon in Jericho and Gaza.

Mubarak was also in contact with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Egyptian officials said.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Amir Moussa, who met with the two delegations for six hours Tuesday night in a marathon effort to draft a letter of understanding, said there are still strong prospects for an agreement.

“Talks will continue, certain issues have been discussed thoroughly, those issues will be put before the leaderships in both camps,” Moussa said.

An important difficulty in concluding an accord has been division within the Palestinian camp over how many concessions to offer the Israelis in an autonomy plan that many Palestinians already regard as a sellout.

Abbas, who concluded the secret talks with Israel in Norway that produced the landmark Declaration of Principles on Palestinian autonomy signed in September, took over the negotiations in Cairo after weeks of fighting with Arafat over what Abbas viewed as an unrealistically tough negotiating stance.

It was Abbas and his partners who worked through the night to conclude a proposed three-point letter of understanding. But the meeting with Arafat, who stopped at the airport on his way back from meetings with Sudanese leaders in Khartoum, apparently fell short of winning a blessing, at least for the moment.

Israeli officials said they believe Arafat simply wants to conclude the agreement himself when he meets with Rabin.

But Yasser Abed-Rabbo, a PLO Executive Committee member and key Arafat lieutenant, watched the announcement of “a meeting of the minds” Wednesday in Cairo and shook his head. “This is the only diplomatic exercise I’ve seen where they call a stalemate progress,” he said.

And in Tunis, the PLO’s Executive Committee complained within hours of the announcement that Israel’s bargaining stance, insisting on control of all crossings and bridges from Jordan and Egypt, “will make this withdrawal no more than a redeployment of Israeli forces in these areas and empty of all meaning.”

Israeli sources say the compromise worked out in Cairo calls for Israel to continue to control the international borders, but no longer by force of conquest and only under terms of agreements reached with the PLO. It specifies that anyone entering at crossing points would first pass through Israeli control and then, if proceeding into Palestinian territory, through a Palestinian control point.

If the traveler is not entering Gaza or Jericho but proceeding to Israel or elsewhere in the West Bank, he would not pass through the Palestinian control point. Israel would have a veto over all those entering Gaza and Jericho.

The compromise would allow Palestinian frontier officers to operate at the Allenby Bridge, the main crossing point between the West Bank and Jordan, even though the Palestinian-controlled area in Jericho would be some distance back.

“Palestinians have an argument that they would like those entering Gaza or Jericho only to be checked by them,” Shahal, the Israeli police minister, said in an interview. “We had a problem, because we agreed in the interim period there would be no admission to Palestinians who left the country in 1948 and are now in refugee camps.”

Palestinian negotiators were also apparently coaxed into accepting Israel’s proposal for the area of Jericho that will come under Palestinian self-rule. Israeli sources said the draft agreement calls for the autonomous area to be between 56 and 58 square kilometers--roughly the size of Israel’s last proposal--compared to the 200 square kilometers (80 square miles) that the Palestinians demanded in their last offer.

But as part of the compromise, Israel agreed to a joint venture with the new Palestinian governing authority to develop tourism and resources adjacent to the Dead Sea, an area the Palestinians had sought to include in the autonomous district.

Murphy reported from Cairo, Parks from Jerusalem.