Arafat, Peres Meet to Discuss Flagging Peace Process

Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat hosted former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres in the West Bank on Sunday as Israel’s Arab friends warned Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu not to tamper with peace accords.

Israeli and Palestinian officials said Sunday that Prime Minister Netanyahu, pressed to move swiftly to rescue a crippled peace process, might meet Arafat this week.

One Palestinian official, who requested he not be identified, said a Netanyahu-Arafat meeting could take place Wednesday.

“There are signs of such a meeting, I cannot deny this,” Netanyahu aide David Bar-Illan said, adding that he could not discuss details.

Arafat and Peres, of the opposition Labor Party, met in self-ruled Nablus--the last West Bank town still under an Israeli blockade imposed after fierce clashes killed at least 60 Palestinians and 15 Israelis last month--to discuss now-threatened peace deals the two men crafted.

Israeli and U.S. officials said later Sunday that talks on a long-postponed Israeli army redeployment from the West Bank city of Hebron, which were to have convened in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Taba today, have been delayed one day.

“We are here now to follow up . . . how we shall protect the peace process, how we shall defend it and how we shall push it forward in this difficult situation,” Arafat said after the meeting at Israel’s former occupation headquarters, now the seat of government for autonomous Nablus.

Asked if he had carried a message to the Palestinian leader, Peres told reporters with a smile: “I am the message.”

The overdue troop pullback from Hebron is the central issue in U.S.-brokered peace talks.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the talks with Netanyahu’s government had yielded “not one inch of progress.” He urged Washington to push Israel to honor the Hebron deal.

Arab leaders made a point of extending invitations to Peres and Israeli President Ezer Weizman while excluding Netanyahu. Peres will visit Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak next week.

Weizman, whose job is largely ceremonial, was due today in Egypt, where he is seen as an elder statesman, in contrast with the young and less-experienced Netanyahu.