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| Mideast peace efforts at deadlock
'Time running out' says Barak
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Gloom deepened over Middle East peace prospects after U.S. President Bill Clinton was unable to break the deadlock over Jerusalem in separate meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Clinton remained available to help mediate, but the two sides had to make the "hard decisions." Barak said Thursday that "time is running" out for the Israelis and Palestinians to achieve a Mideast peace agreement.
He said the impasse on the resumption of Mideast talks could be linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's unwillingness to budge on points put forth at the recent Camp David, Maryland, talks. "We are realistic enough to know that nobody can have 100 percent of their dreams," Barak said at a news conference in New York, where he is attending the United Nations Millennium Summit. "Time is running out, and I don't believe that President Clinton or Israel will be able to negotiate, in the same terms, two months from now," said Barak, referring to the fact that the U.S. president's term is nearing its end. Arafat: It 'depends not on me'In an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Arafat said the chance for another three-way summit to discuss peace "depends not on me," and he dismissed the idea that Barak's government has taken political risks to present peace issues. There are "20 votes (of the Knesset) still in his pocket," Arafat said. "I'm not asking for the moon. I'm asking for what has been signed, what has been agreed upon, to be implemented accurately and honestly. Not more or less," Arafat said. The Palestinian leader has often noted his group's willingness to "share Jerusalem" while remaining "committed to our national rights over east Jerusalem," the heavily Arab section of the ancient city that the Palestinians want for their capital. Pressed by Amanpour regarding divided sovereignty of Jerusalem, Arafat rebutted, "Would you accept shared sovereignty of Washington? ... You accept London being shared?" Temple Mount under disputeBarak also sees east Jerusalem as the sticking point. "I believe the most complicated issue is Jerusalem, but I believe that if there will be a breakthrough on Jerusalem, I believe that other issues could be pushed forward in an effective way," he said. Sites sacred to the world's religions are located in the Old City of Jerusalem, including the area called Temple Mount by the Israelis and al Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, by Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs.
Barak said: "The Temple Mount is only place under dispute" in the stalled talks. "Jerusalem and the Temple Mount are the cornerstones of Jewish identity. No Israeli prime minister will ever be able to sign a document that gives up sovereignty of the Temple Mount to the Palestinians," Barak said. Arafat saw it differently. "Rights are rights," he said. "I can't betray my people. I can't betray the Arabs. I can't betray the Christians. I can't betray the Muslims," which he implied he would be doing if he accepted Barak's stance on Jerusalem. "I am not going to betray them," he added. Israel insists that Jerusalem is its "eternal" capital. At the Mideast peace summit at Camp David in July, Barak offered the Palestinians local control of some neighborhoods and suburbs, but Arafat rejected the overture, insisting on sovereignty over the entire part of the city that Israel won from Jordan in the 1967 war. 'We do not lose hope'Clinton had been holding behind-the-scenes meetings with Barak and Arafat at the U.N. summit. In an effort to jump-start the peace talks, the president met both men on Wednesday, the first such face-to-face encounters since the Camp David talks in July. The idea was for Clinton to "get a sense" of where Barak and Arafat stood in the peace process, said White House press secretary Joe Lockhart. Still, Barak said, Israel is "hopeful that, in response to our readiness to take calculated risk, without violating our national interest, that the other side will be able to show some level of flexibility and openness." "We do not lose hope," Barak said. RELATED STORIES: Clinton pushes Arafat, Barak for an agreement RELATED SITES: The Israeli Government's Official Website, by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
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