Summit Is Extended as Mideast Talks Stall

President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore shuttled between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators Sunday, trying to salvage what they could from the once-bright hopes for the Wye Plantation summit.

Late Sunday afternoon, U.S. officials abandoned their determination to complete the talks on a new Mideast peace agreement by the end of the weekend and decided to continue the bargaining today.

Perhaps significantly, they set no new deadline to reach a deal under which Israel would cede more land to the Palestinians in exchange for further security guarantees.

“We decided it was in the best interest of the peace process and the best interest of the parties to continue the discussions we have been having today,” State Department spokesman James P. Rubin told reporters.

“Everyone feels like the work is continuing at a good pace,” he added. “There are serious efforts being made.”

Nevertheless, there were ominous signs that things were not going as well as the U.S. mediators implied. For one, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat had not met face-to-face since Friday, when their session of a little more than an hour was, according to Israeli press reports, tense and at times insulting.

Instead, Clinton, Gore and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met separately with the two leaders, hoping to cobble together some sort of agreement that all sides could describe as a success.

And, despite the disagreements that forced the talks into overtime, there were indications that the negotiators might be able to do that. So many items were on the agenda when the talks began Thursday that some sort of partial deal could be achieved even if it does not address the most important issues.

U.S. officials hoped to keep lower-level negotiations going after the summit ends. However, if Netanyahu and Arafat reach an impasse, that would make the work of the bargainers far more difficult.

“There is time to complete the work if the political will is there to make the tough decisions,” Rubin said earlier Sunday, before the decision had been made to continue the talks for at least another day.

Although the U.S.-imposed news blackout generally held, the Israeli press contained tidbits Sunday. Newspapers and television reported a series of conflicts and focused on the one face-to-face meeting between the antagonists.

Netanyahu was said to have referred to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria, the biblical term preferred by Israeli settlers and other Jews who oppose any extension of Palestinian self-rule. When a Palestinian participant objected to the terminology, Netanyahu reportedly replied: “I can say what I want.”

Another report had Netanyahu complaining about the loss of millions of dollars in car thefts committed by Arabs.

With Netanyahu and Arafat clearly reluctant to talk to each other, Clinton, Gore and Albright crafted a new definition of “shuttle diplomacy,” the technique perfected by Henry A. Kissinger on endless flights between Israel and Arab capitals when he was secretary of State. Behind the fence of the sealed-off Wye Plantation, the U.S. officials walked or used golf carts to cover the distance of about a third of a mile between the Israeli and Palestinian lodges.

Having returned to the Chesapeake Bay-region compound shortly before noon, Clinton met first with Israel’s new foreign minister, Ariel Sharon, and Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai, both of whom arrived Sunday morning to join the Israeli delegation. Then Clinton, Gore and Albright joined Netanyahu and his aides for lunch.

Late in the afternoon, the president and his aides huddled with Arafat.

White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said no decision had been made by late Sunday about whether Clinton will participate in the talks today. But he said “there has been no discussion” of canceling Clinton’s two-day fund-raising trip to California, which is scheduled to start Tuesday. Despite skipping Friday’s sessions, Clinton had already spent more than 19 hours at the Middle East talks over three days.

The added day of talks was clearly required because the parties had been unable to agree on key issues, not because they were pressed for time. All the participants had engaged in activities that could only be classed as killing time.

For instance, while Clinton was meeting with Netanyahu on Sunday, Arafat went on a 90-minute bicycle ride around the compound, his trademark kaffiyeh flying in the wind, according to the French news service Agence France-Presse. Between meetings with Netanyahu and Arafat, Clinton walked alone for 20 minutes, Lockhart said. And members of all three delegations found time to shop at a factory outlet mall about five miles from the compound.

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Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson in Jerusalem contributed to this story.