Clinton-Arafat Meeting Fails to Yield Breakthrough in Mideast Talks

President Clinton admonished Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat on Thursday that it is time to “finish the job” of Middle East peace negotiations, but their three-hour meeting failed to produce the breakthrough needed to settle a half-century dispute over the future of the Holy Land.

Speaking in the White House driveway after his meeting with Clinton, Arafat fell back on a favorite tactic of both Israelis and Palestinians: blaming the other side for the impasse.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak “until now doesn’t have the will to reach a just and comprehensive settlement to achieve peace in the region,” Arafat said.

An Israeli diplomat later responded: “No one is giving up. Contrary to what was said, the prime minister is sincerely committed to this process and wants to see it work.”

U.S. officials were careful to avoid characterizing the Clinton-Arafat meeting as a failure. But they were hard-pressed to cite any examples of progress.

White House spokesman P. J. Crowley, struggling for something positive to say about the session, told reporters, “When the chairman [Arafat] comes here, his meeting with the president is always constructive, and it’s always helpful when we can help them understand” the Israeli viewpoint. But Crowley left little doubt that the discussion did not go much beyond a review of each side’s bargaining positions.

Arafat’s one-day visit to Washington came on the third day of sputtering talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators at two Washington-area air bases.

On Wednesday, the Palestinians said they would pull out unless Israel agreed to release about 250 Palestinian prisoners and complete the hand-over of additional West Bank territory under the provisions of a previous agreement.

U.S. officials insisted Thursday that there has been no formal break in the talks. However, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said most members of the Palestinian delegation attended Arafat’s meetings with Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, leaving little time for talks with the Israelis.

Barak and Arafat agreed last September to wrap up their negotiations on a final peace agreement within a year. A Sept. 13 deadline was set. Arafat has said he will issue a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood if the negotiations are not completed by then, a step that the United States and Israel oppose.

With Arafat standing at his side, Clinton said before the White House meeting that the pace of negotiations must be accelerated if a peace deal is to be reached by September.

“I want to finish the job, and I’d like to see it finished on time,” Clinton said.

But after the meeting, Arafat said Clinton must do more to persuade the Israelis to compromise.

“At this difficult time, and faced with the obstacles we are facing in the negotiations, we really do need the assistance and help of President Clinton,” Arafat said.

Crowley, the White House spokesman, said it would be a mistake for either Israel or the Palestinians to rely on Washington to deliver the other side.

“We are not in a position to pressure them,” he said.

Clinton has met frequently over the past year with Barak and Arafat. It has become something of a tradition for U.S. officials to speak optimistically after such meetings. But there was not much in the way of upbeat assessments Thursday.

“This is a marathon,” Crowley said. “So, at any particular time are they going to confront hills and obstacles? Absolutely.”

U.S. officials have said that, once a peace deal is in sight, Barak, Arafat and Clinton will stage a Camp David-type summit to wrap it up. But officials said Thursday that conditions for a summit were not yet ripe.

Nevertheless, Clinton and his aides insisted that they were not giving up.

“This is not a question of being optimistic or pessimistic,” Crowley said. “This is a determination on our part to continue to help the parties make progress and work towards an agreement on the final-status issues.”