Arafat Gets Vow of U.S. Ties in Trade, Science and Culture

Making a rare solo appearance here, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat won assurances Wednesday of closer U.S.-Palestinian relations, including increased trade and scientific and cultural exchanges.

In return, Arafat renewed his promise to fulfill Palestinian obligations under a stalled peace accord reached with Israel last year--and appeared to back away from earlier vows of a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state in May.

“I am insistent on following up the peace process,” Arafat said after a 40-minute meeting with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

On the volatile issue of statehood, he said, “This cannot be mentioned now because our Palestinian leadership is discussing this matter with all our friends and brothers.”

The responses were vintage Arafat, open to virtually any interpretation a listener might choose.

Nevertheless, the Clinton administration appeared satisfied, at least for the time being. Albright agreed to a meeting later this month of the U.S.-Palestinian Commission, a high-level grouping assigned to smooth ties between Washington and the Palestinians.

“We will be looking for ways to deepen our ties with the Palestinian Authority, including trying to improve the prospects for trade, and including the prospects for exchanges in the area of science and cultural and other exchanges,” State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said.

Arafat has visited Washington regularly in recent years but almost always in conjunction with Israel’s prime minister of the day. In October, for instance, he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed the now-faltering Wye Plantation peace accord in the East Room of the White House.

This time, with Israeli politicians tied down at home by an increasingly bitter election campaign, Arafat arrived alone to attend the annual national prayer breakfast today, at which he hopes to engage in a brief chat with another guest--President Clinton. Some Jewish and evangelical Christian groups have urged a boycott of the breakfast to protest Arafat’s presence.

White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said Clinton will attend as scheduled. Albright also plans to go. A few lawmakers said they will stay away.

Lockhart said the breakfast is “one of the few bastions left in Washington where politics don’t normally intrude.”

He added: “It’s done every year in the spirit of reconciliation. And it’s unfortunate that there are some who don’t fully understand the spirit of reconciliation and inclusion.”

A full-page advertisement in the conservative Washington Times newspaper Wednesday, financed by a group called the Committee for a Secure Peace, accuses Arafat of recently releasing five militant Islamic prisoners who had killed U.S. citizens in bombings in Israel.

Netanyahu’s office said the releases were an example of a “revolving door” policy in which militants are jailed and then released.

Rubin said the U.S. government has no evidence that would tie any of the five released prisoners to the deaths of Americans. But he said that Albright warned Arafat on Wednesday against setting free Palestinians implicated in terrorism.

“We do have concerns more broadly about the issue of security that we’ve been discussing with the Palestinians,” Rubin said.

Complaints about the release of Palestinian militants were undercut Wednesday when Israeli President Ezer Weizman reduced the sentences of seven Jewish ultranationalists convicted of killing or plotting to kill Arabs.