Ross reschedules Mideast trip as time to seal accord slips away

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No apparent movement on critical issues

Palestinians: No declaration of principles

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. peace envoy Dennis Ross has delayed indefinitely a trip to the Middle East opting instead to allow Israelis and Palestinians more time to talk among themselves, White House spokesman Jake Siewart said on Wednesday.

"We are looking at how the security discussions move forward before we make any decisions," Siewert said.

Earlier, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said he had spoken directly with Ross by telephone and learned of the delay.

U.S. President Bill Clinton's hopes to conclude a peace deal before he leaves office on January 20 were fading as Palestinians and Israelis alike stuck to hard-line positions that held little room for compromise.

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Ross had been scheduled to leave Washington on Tuesday, but announced a delay because of "scheduling" problems. State Department officials said the trip is "postponed for the time being" so that a series of serious security meetings in Israel and the Palestinian territories can go forward.

Erakat said that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, an Israeli government minister, met on Tuesday night in Gaza, and additional meetings were expected between the Israelis and Palestinians over security and political issues.

Lipkin-Shahak confirmed the meeting with Arafat, and Israel radio reported that Avi Dichter, the chief of the Israel's Shin Bet security service, participated in the meeting.

One senior administration official reported that initial security meetings have been "pretty good" but that more progress will be needed before Ross would travel to the region.

If and when Ross does travel, officials say, his trip will be brief and will be focused on either getting an agreement or a "clear set of understandings."

"What's required at this point are decisions," said one senior U.S. administration official. "No negotiations are necessary," he said, because everything has already been discussed.

Arafat was expected to travel to Tunis, Tunisia, late Wednesday or early Thursday for a meeting of the Arab League foreign ministers.

Also, State Department officials said that U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright would meet with Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami on Friday in Paris. She had no plans to meet with the Palestinians, the officials said.

No apparent movement on critical issues

Clinton, drawing near to the end of two four-year terms in office, had hoped to seal a peace deal in the waning days of his presidency. Toward that end, he presented both sides on December 23 with a set of proposals that would serve as a basis for a resumption of talks.

The Israelis and Palestinians eventually said they could accept the proposals, with reservations, but the reservations appeared to be on the same points that scuttled peace talks held last summer at Camp David.

Clinton's proposals call for the Palestinians to drop their claim to the so-called right of return in exchange for sovereignty over a site in east Jerusalem -- called the Temple Mount by Jews, Haram al-Sharif by Muslims -- revered by both religions.

The right of return would allow Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to homes in Israel they were forced to abandon when the Jewish state was founded in 1948.

But Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, facing an uphill battle for re-election on February 6, says that he would never sign an agreement that transfers sovereignty of the holy site in east Jerusalem, nor would he agree to the right of return for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

And Arafat, bolstered by the support of Arab League nations, says the Palestinians will not cede the right of return for anything, and must have sovereignty over the holy sites.

Palestinians: No declaration of principles

Officials on both sides say a peace deal at this point is unlikely.

Barak said on Tuesday that the purpose of Ross's visit was to sound out both sides about a statement on Mideast peace that Clinton may issue at the end of his term.

Such a declaration could serve as a starting point for the new U.S. administration, although Clinton has said the parameters for a peace deal he set last month will not be binding on the Bush administration.

Ahmed Qurie, a Palestinian negotiator, said Tuesday that the Palestinians were not yet ready to accept any broad declaration of principles for reaching a peace agreement.

"I don't see that there is any possibility of success at this very short time, and therefore let's wait," he said.

Both sides also blame each other for an upsurge of violence that began on September 28. Since that time, at least 391 people -- 335 Palestinians, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, and 43 Israeli Jews and 13 Israeli Arabs, according to the IDF and Israeli police -- have been killed.

CNN State Department correspondent Andrea Koppel, CNN Correspondents Jerrold Kessel, CNN Correspondent Matthew Chance, and The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.