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AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
JERUSALEM, NOV 11: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after two weeks of delay which angered the Palestinians, is to hold a cabinet meeting today to approve the Wye River land-for-security agreement.
Israeli Radio said that ahead of the cabinet debate, Netanyahu would convene the members of his inner security cabinet to brief them on ``clarifications'' from the US to a Palestinian plan of action against terrorism.
The inner cabinet meeting between Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yitzhak Mordechai, Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon and Trade and Industry Minister Nathan Sharansky, would be followed by a session of the 17-member cabinet.
The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, is also expected to begin debate today on the peace accord hammered out during nine days of US-hosted talks last month in eastern Maryland, but a vote is not expected before Thursday.
Netanyahu had delayed or broken-off cabinet debate on the agreement several times during the past two weeks, most recently on Friday following a bombattack in a west Jerusalem market which left 24 Israelis wounded.
He said he would not resume discussions until Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority proved it was cracking down on anti-Israeli extremists and moving to annul anti-Israel clauses in the Palestinian national charter.
Two Israeli soldiers were wounded near the flashpoint West Bank town of Hebron yesterday but the incident prompted no immediate moves by Israeli officials to delay the key cabinet meeting.
The repeated delays in approving the agreement, which had been scheduled to come into force on November 2, drew sharp condemnation from the Palestinians, who threatened yesterday to freeze implementation of the accord.
Arafat accused Netanyahu of purposely wasting time by holding up the cabinet and parliament ratification votes. "We expect that Netanyahu will waste a lot of time and he's not going to implement the agreement honestly and quickly at all,'' Arafat told mediapersons in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Earlier a seniorPalestinian negotiator, Hassan Asfour, warned that the Palestinians would soon halt implementation of the accord if Netanyahu's government did not act quickly.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
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