Palestinian President Yasser Arafat arrived in the United States on Thursday for talks with President Bill Clinton on slow progress in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
Clinton met Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in Washington last week, and a U.S. official said he was encouraged by renewed momentum in the negotiations, which face a May target date for agreement on the framework for a final settlement.
But Palestinians have been less optimistic about prospects for an agreement, which has to cover some of the most difficult issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict, including borders, Jerusalem, refugees and Jewish settlements.
Palestinian and Israeli negotiators have held two rounds of talks this year at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington in an attempt to forge the framework agreement by May.
In Jerusalem, a Palestinian leader warned of confrontations with Israel unless a peace treaty is reached with the Palestinians before they declare an independent state this year.
"We have a commitment to enlarge our sovereignty. We want to expand geographically. Israel will resist," Faisal al-Husseini, the Palestine Liberation Organization's official for Jerusalem and a member of the final status negotiating team, told Reuters.
Larry Schwartz, spokesman for the US embassy in Israel, said in Gaza on Tuesday that Washington believed good progress was being made in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
He said Clinton wanted to hear Arafat's ideas on how to reach a framework agreement in May and still believed a final agreement could be clinched by September.
But Palestinian negotiator Hassan Asfour said Tuesday he did not expect a breakthrough from the Clinton-Arafat meeting.
"We have nothing new to add," he told Reuters in Gaza, demanding that Israel uphold existing peace accords.
Arafat has said that if they fail to reach the final agreement by the Sept. 13 deadline, the Palestinians will declare a Palestinian state unilaterally.
He will have lunch on Thursday with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and meet Clinton in the afternoon, a Palestinian official said.
On Friday he will appear at the National Press Club and meet World Bank President James Wolfensohn before leaving Washington on Friday night, the official said.
Before the President flew to Washington, he stopped over in Cairo for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Arafat meets Mubarak before talks with Clinton
"The Palestinian track has lots of aspects and lots of proposals," Foreign Minister Amr Moussa told reporters after Arafat's hour-long session with the Egyptian president.
"There is progress on some aspects and danger and setbacks on others. That is what will be discussed in Washington," Moussa said, but did not elaborate.
Arafat, who arrived in Cairo on Tuesday night, left for Washington aboard a private Saudi jet that airport sources said had to pick him up because maintenance work on his own aircraft could not be completed in time, according to Reuters.
In Jerusalem, a Palestinian leader warned of confrontations with Israel unless a peace treaty is reached with the Palestinians before they declare an independent state this year.
"We have a commitment to enlarge our sovereignty. We want to expand geographically. Israel will resist," Faisal al-Husseini, the Palestine Liberation Organization's official for Jerusalem and a member of the final status negotiating team, told Reuters.
Larry Schwartz, spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Israel, said in Gaza on Tuesday that Washington believed good progress was being made in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
He said Clinton wanted to hear Arafat's ideas on how to reach a framework agreement in May and still believed a final agreement could be clinched by September.
But Palestinian negotiator Hassan Asfour said Tuesday he did not expect a breakthrough from the Clinton-Arafat meeting.
"We have nothing new to add," he told Reuters in Gaza, demanding that Israel uphold existing peace accords (Agencies)
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