Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres are at odds over deploying international observers in the Occupied Territories, said Haaretz newspaper on Thursday.
Peres, who is expected to meet with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat next week, has apparently recommended to Sharon that Israel accept the Palestinians' demand for an international mechanism to supervise a ceasefire, said the paper.
The hawkish prime minister has consistently rejected such proposals. He is opposed to any foreign intervention - except that of the CIA - as a mediating force between Israel and the Palestinians.
"Peres has lost all sense of direction if he supports this sort of idea," sources in the prime minister's entourage said Wednesday in Russia.
"Our position on the issue of the observers must not be weakened," they told the paper.
The details of the Arafat-Peres meeting have yet to be decided, but Peres has been given a mandate by Sharon to discuss the terms of a ceasefire as well as an easing of economic sanctions on the Palestinian population.
Arafat has repeatedly called for the deployment of international monitors in the Occupied Territories, an idea supported by the European Union.
The Palestinians announced Wednesday that the much-anticipated Arafat-Peres meeting could take place next week – Albawaba.com
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