Palestinian President Yasser Arafat began a meeting in Cairo Sunday with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to discuss the Palestinian crisis, said AFP.
Arafat and Peres met with delegations from both sides in the presence of Osama Al Baz, the political advisor to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Peres said earlier that Mubarak had proposed that he meet with the Palestinian leader.
An official at the Egyptian presidential palace, speaking after Arafat arrived in Cairo, then informed photographers to prepare for an Arafat-Peres meeting.
Peres’ office had said that he and Arafat would be in Cairo at the same time and "if President Mubarak asks Peres to delay his departure in order to meet with Arafat, he will not refuse, but no such request has been made," said Haaretz newspaper.
The two men last met in Lisbon on June 30.
Following his talks with Mubarak, Peres claimed that Israel would continue to negotiate with Arafat, adding that "war is not an option," according to AFP.
"We will continue to negotiate with Arafat, the elected leader of the Palestinians."
The dovish Peres has denied foreign press reports that the Israeli army has submitted a plan to the government to oust Arafat and wipe out his Palestinian Authority.
According to the paper, Peres has pressured Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to open a direct channel of communications with the Palestinian leader.
On Wednesday, Peres held talks with Sharon on initiating direct contacts with Arafat on a diplomatic level, rather than the current level of security talks.
Peres spent most of last week gathering support for his initiative, meeting with MKs and journalists and driving home his point that delegitimizing the Palestinian leader was contrary to Israel's interests, the paper added.
Diplomatic sources in Jerusalem say that the prime minister accepted in principle the Peres initiative, and announced the next day, Thursday, that the insults he directed against Arafat in recent weeks (calling him a "pathological liar," a "murderer" and "Bin Laden") were "superfluous."
Peres is expected to reap the fruits of his initiative Sunday, said Haaretz, adding that efforts to set up an Arafat-Peres meeting today were also made by the senior European Union envoy to the region, Miguel Moratinos, who will also arrive in Cairo Sunday.
The US administration dispatched a mid-level State Department diplomat, David Satterfield, who held meetings with both Peres and Arafat during the weekend.
There was no official statement after the meeting between Arafat and Satterfield, the former US ambassador to Lebanon and new deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, said AFP.
But Palestinian sources said Arafat later received a call from US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has supported Israel's demand for a total end to the unrest before moving ahead with an internationally-backed peace plan.
The meeting came as Palestinians buried two activists killed Friday, one of them in a car bomb blamed on Israel.
The Israeli army said no injuries were reported in scattered incidents Saturday across the West Bank, where troops defused a bomb close to Bethlehem, and in the Gaza Strip, AFP reported.
Grenades were thrown at its troops near the border town of Rafah and near the Gush Katif settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip, the army said, while Palestinian gunmen also fired on the West Bank settlement of Psagot.
Settlers went on the rampage in the divided city of Hebron early Saturday, hurling stones at Palestinian houses while army troops slashed the tires of Palestinian taxis, witnesses said.
The incidents, which followed a rally of some 2,000 Palestinians against the Jewish state, came after two days of bloodshed in the flashpoint city, which is sacred to both Jews and Muslims and has been the site of regular violence.
Israel poured tanks and troops into Palestinian sectors of Hebron early Friday following a spate of shooting attacks on settlers the previous day that left two dead and several wounded.
Thirty-five people have been killed since the would-be ceasefire was announced one month ago -- 22 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.
Russia's Middle East envoy Andrei Vdvovin urged a halt to the spiral of Israeli-Palestinian violence Saturday, following talks in Cairo with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher, said AFP.
Vdovin told journalists that his talks with Maher covered "the worsening situation in the region and the need to deploy maximum efforts all round to stop the spiral of violence."
The Russian envoy said it was essential that Israelis and Palestinians "return to the negotiating table."
He arrived Saturday in Cairo and will also meet Sunday with Mubarak before going to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, previous reports said.
Meanwhile, a senior Israeli security official said Sunday that the defense establishment had received "the most serious of warnings" of attempts to carry out a terrorist strike in Israel, and that the army and police were on especially high alert, Israel Radio reported.
Widespread traffic tie-ups were expected early Sunday as the police placed roadblocks on main entrances to major cities, said the report, cited by Haaretz newspaper.
It said the attacks were being planned by members of the Islamic militant Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The radio quoted the unnamed senior official as saying that "the warnings are among the most severe that have been."
He said the Palestinian Authority's arrests of "four or five" terror suspects supplied by Israel were "important," but said a much larger number of wanted militants were at large, and free to act – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
