Arafat, Barak, Clinton to Meet in Oslo

President Clinton, resuming his role as Middle East mediator, will meet next month in Norway with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to spur talks on a definitive peace settlement, the White House said Wednesday.

The goal is to conclude an agreement before Clinton leaves office in January 2001 on the difficult issues remaining: final borders of a Palestinian state, the future of Jerusalem and the fate of more than 3 million Palestinian refugees.

“There is no greater priority for this administration. There is no greater priority for this president than to bring about a just and lasting peace,” National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger said in announcing the Nov. 2 meeting.

The three leaders will be in Norway to commemorate the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who along with Arafat negotiated the landmark Oslo accords signed in 1993 and 1995 that launched Israel and the Palestinians on the tortuous road to peace. Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing Israeli in November 1995.

Clinton is planning to spend only a day or two in Oslo, in contrast to the nine days he spent last October at the Wye Plantation in Maryland working out an accord between Arafat and Benjamin Netanyahu, then Israel’s prime minister.

Berger praised Israel and the Palestinians for pledging to resolve the most difficult issues between them by next September. He said the United States intends to play a central role in the peace process.

The announcement comes as the White House continues to quarrel with Republicans in Congress about their refusal to provide funds to implement the agreement reached last year at Wye Plantation.

Clinton requested the funding as part of a three-year, $1.9-billion plan to provide military and economic aid to Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians. But the foreign aid bill vetoed by the president Monday includes almost none of the $500 million Clinton had requested to pay expenses generated by the accords, including the redeployment of Israeli troops and economic aid to the Palestinians.

Clinton met Tuesday night with House and Senate leaders to try to resolve the dispute. But while Berger described the talks as constructive, he said they “by no means solved the problem.”

“The president will not sign any foreign operations bill that does not contain this funding,” Berger said. “By failing to adequately fund our foreign policy, we harm not only America’s interests but also Israel’s interests and the interests of all those dedicated to peace in the Middle East.”

Berger’s comments came during a speech before the Israel Policy Forum, a private group that promotes Arab-Israeli reconciliation. He obliquely criticized the government of Netanyahu, a hard-liner who stalled peace talks.

Barak took office in July, pledging to forge a lasting peace with the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon.

The 1993 and 1995 Oslo accords marked a turning point in Israel’s stance toward the Palestinians. Officials of the Jewish state recognized Arafat as a negotiating partner and started a process of Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But most of the land remains under Israeli control, and Arafat wants all of it to establish a state.