Arafat and Israelis Meet in Bid to Restart Negotiations : Mideast: Increasing tempo of contacts called encouraging. Topics include self-government and security of civilians.

In the highest-level contact since the Hebron mosque massacre, Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat met Sunday night in Tunis with a delegation of senior Israeli bureaucrats in an effort to restart negotiations over Palestinian self-government.

A PLO official said the talks focused on steps Israel could take to ensure the security of Palestinian civilians in Israeli-occupied territory, the PLO’s main condition for resuming formal negotiations, according to news agency reports from the Tunisian capital.

If sufficient progress is made in the preliminary talks, Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres will meet in Paris on Thursday, Israel Radio reported.

Both men are scheduled to be in the French capital that day for an international donors’ conference intended to raise funds to pay for Palestinian self-government.

“We will try to speed up the completion of the negotiations as well as the implementation of the agreement” on Palestinian autonomy signed in September, Peres said Sunday in Jerusalem, the Associated Press reported.

Although both Israeli and PLO officials insisted that the formal talks have not yet resumed, the increasing tempo of contacts was a hopeful sign.

Neither side wants to appear to give in to the other, but both Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin clearly want to complete work on the Palestinian self-rule agreement as soon as possible.

According to officials on both sides, Israel and the PLO were very close to wrapping up the details of Palestinian self-government in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho when the PLO broke off the talks to protest the Feb. 25 massacre of about 30 Palestinian worshipers in a mosque in Hebron.

The PLO has demanded that Israel disarm radical Jewish settlers, close down some settlements and take steps to guarantee the safety of Palestinian civilians.

In response, Israel has banned two militant Jewish organizations and ordered some settlers to turn in their army-issued weapons.

But PLO officials have said the steps are not enough.

In Jerusalem on Sunday, the Israeli Cabinet approved in principle the establishment of a Palestinian police presence in Hebron under Israeli authority. Rabin suggested such a move after talks last week at the White House with President Clinton.

But the PLO says the measure is not acceptable because Israel would retain ultimate authority over the police.

The Israeli delegation that met Arafat, led by Uri Savir, director general of the Foreign Ministry, arrived in Tunis on Sunday afternoon aboard a U.S. Air Force jetliner from a military base in Italy.

Israeli television said the United States provided the transportation after Tunisian authorities refused to permit the Israelis to land in their own aircraft. But Reuters news agency said Tunis airport officials said they knew nothing of the report.

Before leaving Israel, Savir said, “There is principally a need to pave the way to (resume) negotiations.”

Savir said Israel will comply with U.N. Security Council Resolution 904, passed Friday, demanding that Israel allow establishment of a temporary international presence in the occupied territories to protect Palestinian civilians.

Under the terms of the Declaration of Principles that Israel and the PLO signed on the White House lawn Sept. 13, Israel was supposed to have withdrawn from the Gaza Strip and Jericho during a four-month period from Dec. 13 through April 13.

However, with the negotiations over unsettled details in the declaration still incomplete, the Israeli pullback has not yet started.

Peres said Sunday that Israel is willing to accelerate the pace of its withdrawal, turning governmental functions over to a Palestinian authority within four to six weeks after the negotiations conclude. But he said nothing can be done until the PLO returns to the bargaining table.