Arafat and Netanyahu Meet, Agree to a Summit in U.S.

Ending more than a year of icy hostility, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat agreed after a 90-minute meeting at the White House on Monday to hold a full-scale summit in Washington next month.

President Clinton, who presided over Monday’s talks, announced “significant progress,” although other U.S. officials said the initial results were more atmospheric than substantive.

A senior Clinton administration official said both Netanyahu and Arafat were “anxious to do a deal--probably for different reasons.” Both men eagerly agreed to Clinton’s proposal for a mid-October summit, even though few of their nettlesome disputes have been resolved.

Netanyahu and Arafat, who have refused even to talk to each other for almost 18 months, broke the ice in a face-to-face meeting in New York with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. It was during that meeting, which began shortly before midnight Sunday, that the antagonists agreed to Monday’s talks at the White House.

Originally, Arafat and Netanyahu were scheduled to meet with Clinton separately--Netanyahu on Monday and Arafat today, after the Israeli delegation’s planned return home.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office with the two Middle East leaders at his side, Clinton said Albright will travel to the region early next month to prepare for the summit talks, which officials said will be a tough, open-ended negotiation over how to move into the final phase of the 1993 Oslo peace accords. Officials said Albright plans to be in the region Oct. 6-7.

“We’ve made significant progress on the path to peace, and I think we could finish it mid-October,” Clinton told reporters. “ . . . I believe there’s been progress in all major areas. I think we’re closer together on every major issue.”

Arafat Takes Moderate Tone at U.N.

A senior official who is close to the negotiating process said some progress was made during the past year of separate meetings between U.S. mediators and Israeli and Palestinian officials. But he said the pace was “excruciatingly slow.” He said there was little prospect of a breakthrough without an intensive Netanyahu-Arafat meeting.

Clinton, Netanyahu and Arafat all declined to discuss the details of their meeting. But the change in mood was dramatic.

Later Monday, Arafat told the U.N. General Assembly that the Palestinians are determined to establish a state of their own. But he did not suggest that he might declare unilateral statehood May 4, the date that the existing interim peace agreement is supposed to be supplanted with a permanent settlement.

Arafat and his aides had suggested for weeks that the Palestinian leader would use his General Assembly speech to declare his intention to proclaim statehood, a step that Netanyahu had said would destroy the peace process. U.S. and Israeli officials heaved a sigh of relief at Arafat’s moderate tone.

Dore Gold, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, said his government was pleased that “Arafat was dissuaded from using the podium of the U.N.” to declare his plan for statehood.

Arafat’s speech to the General Assembly was received politely but not enthusiastically by delegates. Speaking in Arabic, he said: “This independent Palestinian state must be established as an embodiment of the right of our people to self-determination. I assure you that our people will continue to pursue and protect the peace of the brave in the Middle East.”

For most of the past year, Israel and the Palestinians have been haggling over the amount of West Bank territory Israel would hand over to the Palestinian Authority under the peace agreement negotiated in Oslo and signed on the White House lawn in 1993.

Under a U.S.-proposed compromise, which the Palestinians accepted, Israel would relinquish 13% more of West Bank territory than it has given up so far. But for months, Netanyahu insisted that it would damage Israel’s security to yield more than 10%. Under conditions both sides have indicated they will accept, Israel would relinquish 10% of the land directly to the Palestinians and would give them another 3% provided it will be kept open as a “nature reserve.”

In return, Israel has demanded that the Palestinians take firm action to prevent terrorist attacks against Israeli targets from being organized in Palestinian territory.

In his U.N. speech, Arafat pledged to cooperate with Israel “in the fields of security and the protection of Palestinian and Israeli souls against violence and terrorism in all its forms and sources.”

But in a Monday night interview on Israeli television, Netanyahu complained that the Palestinians have not yet agreed to an acceptable plan to fight terrorism, although he suggested that some progress had been made.

“With the Palestinians, I believe there is a beginning of an understanding on the issue of reciprocity,” Netanyahu said. “There is still work to be done on this, but we will meet here with the purpose of concluding everything.”

Settlers Protest Withdrawal

Perhaps significantly, Netanyahu passed up a chance to attack Arafat, insisting that the Palestinian leader was capable of delivering his side of the bargain--tightening security.

“I’m sure he’s capable,” Netanyahu said. “He has to have the will.”

The Jewish settlers’ movement, which believes that more than a dozen West Bank settlements could be left isolated under the proposed withdrawal, already was working to mobilize opposition.

Two settler leaders flew to the United States on Monday to try to dissuade the prime minister from reaching an accord with Arafat. Several right-wing legislators renewed their threats to bring down Netanyahu’s coalition if he signs any agreement to turn over more West Bank land to the Palestinians.

Marshall reported from Washington and Kempster from the United Nations. Times staff writer Rebecca Trounson in Jerusalem contributed to this report.