Israel, PLO Reach Partial West Bank Pact

After four days of marathon talks, Israeli and Palestinian leaders announced early today that they had reached only a partial agreement to broaden Palestinian rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat announced the framework deal at a 3 a.m. news conference in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Taba, but they conceded that they had left at least one major sticking point--control over the troubled city of Hebron--for later.

Both sides refused to give details of the outline accord for the redeployment of Israeli troops from the West Bank and the holding of Palestinian elections. Peres said he had to present the package to the Israeli Cabinet at its regular Sunday meeting before he could make it public.

Although the signing of a formal agreement for the second stage of the 1993 peace accord is still weeks away at least, the two sides appear to be moving steadily in that direction.

“With this agreement, we didn’t complete the work, but without this agreement, the [negotiating] committees wouldn’t be able to continue to work,” Peres said.

Arafat added that the negotiations “have achieved something concrete and very positive which will enable us to push forward in this process.”

The framework deal forged during intense negotiations over the past week includes a commitment by Arafat to eliminate clauses calling for the destruction of Israel from his organization’s covenant within two months of the signing of the interim agreement.

This has been a key issue for Israel and for the U.S. Congress, which provides funds to Arafat’s incipient government, the Palestinian Authority, which has ruled the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho since July, 1994.

The two sides said that they had consulted with U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher during their talks and that the United States would join in a tripartite committee to hammer out details of water rights and economic issues.

On Tuesday, the leaders said that they had agreed on an 18-month timetable for the staged redeployment of Israeli army troops from villages and rural areas of the West Bank following Palestinian elections, but that they had not yet drawn up a map for the redeployment.

They had agreed last month that Israel would pull out of at least four West Bank cities before Palestinian elections.

*

Today’s accord also apparently defines which of the West Bank’s hundreds of Arab villages will be under Palestinian control and sets a timetable for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

But the two sides were unable to come to terms on Israeli withdrawal from Hebron, where about 400 Jews live in the midst of about 100,000 Palestinians. Most of the other 120,000 West Bank Jews live in isolated settlements that will continue to be guarded by Israeli soldiers and connected to Israeli urban centers by special access roads.

Palestinian spokesman Marwan Kanafani had said on Thursday that Israel’s refusal to pull its troops out of Hebron before Palestinian elections was holding up the agreement.

He said Israel was trying to delay withdrawal from Hebron until after its own national elections next year. Palestinians want Israeli troops out of West Bank cities before the Palestinian elections, and they particularly want the withdrawal from Hebron completed in case Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin loses his election to the right-wing Likud Party, which opposes any West Bank withdrawal.

Peres and Arafat had hoped to complete their agreement in Taba, but they ultimately decided to leave Hebron out of the accord in order to sign what they did accomplish.

“I believe that, even on Hebron, we shall reach an agreement,” Peres said. “We went over many details, but we did not have enough time.”

Arafat added, “We are very interested with the security of the settlers in the old city [of Hebron], and we will coordinate and cooperate with this issue.”

Peres and Arafat said negotiators will resume work early next week.