Day 14 of Mideast Talks ‘Exhaustive and Exhausting’

With time running short, President Clinton conferred on a virtual round-the-clock schedule Monday with Israeli, Palestinian and American negotiators to hammer out details of a possible Middle East peace pact.

White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said Clinton engaged in “exhaustive and exhausting” talks with the technical experts who are working on specific articles that would be included if Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat reached agreement.

Clinton met separately with Barak and Arafat late Sunday, shortly after returning to the talks from Japan, then began a series of meetings with the negotiating teams, Lockhart said. Small groups of negotiators rotated through Clinton’s cabin at the Camp David retreat, while others met among themselves.

“There are a number of issues--all of which have sub-issues--and they are trying to reach agreement,” Lockhart said.

Lockhart said Clinton’s meetings with the technical experts ran from midnight until 5 a.m. Monday, then resumed after a sleep break of about five hours. Late Monday, the 14th day of the talks, the president had an hourlong meeting with Arafat.

It appeared significant that Clinton was talking at such length to those who would draft the text of an agreement.

“The fact that the president is using his time to sit down and work through each and every issue is a decision that he and his team do not take lightly,” Lockhart said.

At the same time, Lockhart said, Clinton was making a “rolling assessment” of the summit and would pull the plug the minute he concluded that Barak and Arafat were not likely to reach agreement.

As long as “the president believes that discussions are substantive and have the potential of leading to an agreement, he will remain here, and he will keep the parties here, to keep working,” Lockhart said. “Should he come to the conclusion that the substance of the discussions and the atmosphere of the discussions do not have the potential to lead to an agreement, then he will act accordingly and bring those discussions to an end.”

Lockhart said there is no “calendar-driven deadline” like there was last week before Clinton left for a summit in Japan of the seven leading industrialized nations and Russia. But he said the talks are unlikely to go much longer.

“All of the parties know that there is a balance here between taking the time to work through the issues and taking too much time [when it] will never lead to an agreement,” Lockhart said.

Barak spokesman Gadi Baltiansky agreed that the prime minister had set no deadline for returning home, but he added, “we don’t have an unlimited amount of time.”

Meanwhile, Lockhart confirmed that CIA Director George J. Tenet visited Camp David over the weekend. He said Tenet’s role was “similar to the last talks”--a cryptic reference to the 1998 Wye Plantation talks, where Israel and the Palestinians agreed to ask the CIA to monitor security agreements.

Lockhart refused to be more specific.

In their meetings with Clinton, the negotiators are focusing on the specific disputes that have fueled half a century of conflict: establishment of a Palestinian state, Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian refugees, security, and the future of Jerusalem, the city that both sides consider their capital.

Although there has been no official confirmation, Israeli and Palestinian sources say the most contentious issue is Jerusalem. Barak is known to have discussed ways to share the city. The Palestinians have said the proposals are not enough.

The fact that Jerusalem is on the table has inflamed opposition Israeli politicians, neighboring Arab governments and the Israeli and Palestinian public.

The domestic political pressure on Barak was ratcheted up Monday when former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted Barak’s reported willingness to make concessions on Jerusalem.

“Jerusalem is our heritage, our dream, our symbol,” Netanyahu said in his first nationally televised speech since he lost to Barak by a wide margin in elections last year.

“We have a duty to preserve Jerusalem,” Netanyahu said. “A nation does not hand over and divide its capital. The yearning for Jerusalem was the dream that united our people. Turning our backs on Jerusalem would be the beginning of our fall.”

According to polls, Netanyahu is the only Israeli politician who would defeat Barak if elections were held today. His speech was seen as the laying of groundwork for his return to politics after a yearlong hiatus.

Meanwhile, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak embarked on a series of meetings with other Arab leaders to discuss a unified reaction if a Jerusalem deal emerges from the summit.

Egyptian officials said Mubarak expressed support of Arafat’s demand for Palestinian sovereignty over Jerusalem’s Arab neighborhoods, Associated Press reported from Cairo. But Mubarak, Washington’s most important ally in the Arab world and the Arab leader with the longest history of peace with Israel, might be trying to dampen opposition to a compromise solution.

Mubarak flew to Saudi Arabia on Sunday. Egyptian officials said that in coming days, he plans to discuss Jerusalem and other aspects of the Camp David summit with Syrian President Bashar Assad and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, either in his capital or theirs.

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