Difficult Phase Begins in ‘Final Status’ Talks

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators reopened their oft-postponed “final status” talks at an air base in Washington on Tuesday, vowing to resolve the most difficult issues of their protracted conflict within the next two months.

“Since this peace process began, we always said we would do the easy stuff first and the hard stuff last,” said Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington. “We are now at the moment of truth.”

Israel and the Palestinian Authority have established a seemingly impossible time schedule, pledging to complete a “framework agreement” that would resolve in principle all of the remaining issues by May, pointing the way to a complete peace treaty by September.

In a reminder that such Middle East deadlines are seldom met, Israel on Tuesday turned over to the Palestinians an additional 6.1% of the West Bank, accomplishing a hand-over that was supposed to have been completed by Jan. 20. The additional land gives the government of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat a firmer hold on about 40% of the West Bank, linking some enclaves into what could become an independent state.

The Israeli Cabinet gave final approval to the territorial measure Sunday. Under the Israeli-Palestinian interim agreement negotiated in Oslo, another hand-over is scheduled for June.

On the table for the talks at Bolling Air Force Base in southeast Washington are the most emotional issues separating the two sides: Jerusalem, borders, water rights, Palestinian statehood and Jewish settlements.

The five-member delegations, headed by each side’s chief negotiator--Israel’s Oded Eran and the Palestinians’ Yasser Abed-Rabbo--are expected to meet for about a week. Officials hope that they will sort out the issues and compile a summary of agreements and disagreements that can be referred back to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Arafat. Final agreement will require a summit of Barak, Arafat and probably President Clinton.

“We expect this process to take a substantial amount of time to overcome differences on these profound issues, and therefore we don’t expect there to be early breakthroughs,” State Department spokesman James P. Rubin told reporters.

With Clinton scheduled to meet Syrian President Hafez Assad in Geneva on Sunday to talk about resuming separate Israeli-Syrian negotiations, the Washington talks are in danger of being overshadowed. But Middle East experts say it would be a mistake for Israel and the United States to give short shrift to the Palestinian talks.

“If the Palestinians begin to doubt that anything will work on their side, that is big trouble for everybody,” said Richard W. Murphy, a former assistant secretary of State for the Middle East who is now on the staff of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

But Murphy said it will be virtually impossible for the Israelis and the Palestinians to complete a treaty by September. He urged the two sides to agree to extend the deadline.

Arafat has said that, unless there is a treaty by September, he will issue a unilateral declaration of statehood. That could touch off a major crisis because the Israelis have said that they would not accept such a move.

Some Israeli officials are talking informally about a possible compromise under which Arafat would declare statehood with Israel’s tacit approval and Israel would annex the Jewish West Bank settlements with the tacit approval of the Palestinians. But neither Barak nor Arafat has given any indication that such a plan would be acceptable.

The Syrian and the Palestinian tracks face a daunting deadline: the end of Clinton’s term in office. Israel, Syria and the Palestinians agree that the U.S. president must be a party to any final agreement. Although any U.S. president would do, all sides agree that it will take Clinton’s successor a while to get up to speed.

“It is absolutely essential that it be done on Clinton’s watch, because a new president would have his hands full with other priorities,” said Geoffrey Kemp, a White House expert on the Middle East during the Reagan administration.