Albright Pushes for Netanyahu, Arafat Meeting

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, conceding that “significant gaps” remain between Israel and the Palestinians in the Mideast peace process, said Wednesday that she will meet with leaders on both sides next week to urge them to resume face-to-face talks.

Albright brushed aside a seeming rejection from Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s camp, insisting that President Clinton’s separate talks with him and with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week produced agreement on U.S. procedural suggestions even though the parties remain far apart on matters of substance.

Last week, Albright said she believed that the White House meetings had cleared the way for her to hold three-way talks with Netanyahu and Arafat, a step that officials say is necessary if the deadlocked Mideast peace process is to resume.

Next week’s meetings with Netanyahu in Jerusalem and Arafat in Gaza City--scheduled during a break in a six-day trip otherwise focused on Iraq--are intended to set the stage for the face-to-face talks, officials said.

In an effort to break the impasse, Clinton suggested that Israel and the Palestinians agree on a step-by-step process in which Israel would gradually transfer West Bank territory to Palestinian control in exchange for concrete steps by the Palestinians to prevent terrorism against Israelis. Albright said there was “every reason to believe” that the antagonists would accept that approach.

But earlier Wednesday, Nabil abu Rudaineh, Arafat’s spokesman, had said bluntly: “The step-by-step formula for withdrawal is rejected,” Associated Press reported from Gaza City. The AP quoted unnamed Palestinian officials who said Arafat had threatened to resign if Washington pressured him into accepting Israeli proposals.

But Albright refused to be discouraged. “We do not take his statement as a rejection of the ideas that were put forward in Washington,” she said. “I think that we have every reason to believe that [Arafat] is interested in looking at this simultaneous and parallel process.”

Albright said she would try to impress upon Netanyahu and Arafat the “urgent need for progress” in the peace process, which has been frozen for more than a year.

“I’m neither optimistic nor pessimistic about the future of these negotiations,” she said at a news conference. “I cannot be optimistic, because leaders in the region remain reluctant to make the hard decisions and to offer the flexibility required to reach an agreement.

“I cannot be pessimistic, because I’m convinced the majority of all faiths and communities in the region desire peace and that a basis exists for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement and, over time, a comprehensive Israeli-Arab settlement,” she said.