Arafat Meets Egypt’s Leader to Talk Peace

PLO leader Yasser Arafat met Sunday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to discuss ways to speed up the Middle East peace process.

After the session, chief PLO negotiator Nabil Shaath said his team will meet again Tuesday with Israeli delegates on the key issues that are delaying Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho.

Arafat was accompanied to the Mubarak meeting by several Palestine Liberation Organization negotiators. No one spoke to reporters after the 90-minute talks.

Later Sunday, Arafat left for Saudi Arabia on his first visit to the kingdom since relations were ruptured three years ago over his pro-Iraq policies during the Persian Gulf War. He was to make a stopover in Damascus to offer condolences to Syrian President Hafez Assad on the death of his son Basil in a car crash last week.

Shaath said the talks on such sticky issues as who will guard borders to Jordan and Egypt will resume Tuesday in the Egyptian resort of Taba. Separate talks on civilian issues will start today, he said.

In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said Israel is seeing progress in its talks with Palestinians, and he called on Assad to meet him “anyplace on Earth” to pursue a peace treaty.

Speaking before a group of American rabbis, Rabin was asked if he would meet with the Syrian leader personally to make peace.

“I am ready to meet President Assad in Damascus, in Jerusalem or anyplace on Earth,” Rabin said.

Both Israel and Syria are hoping to break the stalemate over who should go first in moving toward peace.

Israel wants Syria to commit itself to open borders, an exchange of ambassadors and trade with the Jewish state. Syria wants Israel to declare it will withdraw from the entire Golan Heights captured in the Six-Day War of 1967.

Arafat’s consultations with Mubarak, who often has served as a mediator in Middle East disputes, followed by one day a meeting between Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to try to resolve differences that have stalled Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories.

The Arafat-Peres meeting was held in Oslo, where both men attended the funeral of Norwegian Foreign Minister Johan Jorgen Holst, who died Jan. 13 after two strokes.

Holst was behind secret meetings that led to the historic Israel-PLO accord signed Sept. 13.