Sharon Hopeful About Truce Talks

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon branded Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat a “terrorist” Friday but said he hoped that the two sides would start talks next week on turning a shaky cease-fire into a lasting truce.

The 3-day-old cease-fire has broadly held despite the deaths of at least one Palestinian and one Israeli. A lasting truce could boost U.S. efforts to forge a global anti-terror alliance after the attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

Sharon and his inner Cabinet decided early Friday to persevere with the cease-fire, which has brought relative calm to the West Bank and Gaza Strip after a year of bloodshed that has killed about 800 people.

Sharon later told CNN in an interview in southern Israel that he hoped things would be calm enough for Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Arafat to hold truce talks next week.

“I believe that next week, I hope it will happen--that it will be quiet and calm and there will be the meeting,” Sharon said. He did not mention a date.

A senior Palestinian official said a meeting could take place as early as Sunday.

Sharon stopped Peres from meeting Arafat last Sunday and has said repeatedly that there must be 48 hours of total quiet before any such encounter.

Despite his optimism, Sharon bitterly criticized his old foe Arafat during the interview.

“Arafat is a terrorist. We have to understand that. He is a terrorist hosting terrorist organizations,” Sharon said.

“But I hope that with the Palestinian people the day will come that we will be able with them to host peace negotiations . . . but we will not live with terror. We cannot live with terror,” he said.

Arafat’s advisor, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, called Sharon’s attack “unacceptable.” The aide said it was an attempt “to sabotage the international coalition that the United States is trying to build and to sabotage the Peres-Arafat meeting.”