Albright takes charge as Camp David talks rise back to life

Albright takes charge as Camp David talks rise back to life
AGENCE FRANCE PRESS

THURMONT, JULY 21: US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has taken charge of the Camp David peace talks after their surprise overnight resurrection from declared death, meeting with Israelis and Palestinians in a bid to bridge wide gaps still unresolved in the tenth gruelling day of talks.

With President Bill Clinton away at a summit of industrialised nations in Japan, Albright was meeting separately with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and their teams, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday. "She will continue to try to close the gaps and move forward on issues so that when the President returns, he can assess status of our efforts," Boucher told reporters here.

Meanwhile, in Okhinawa, US President Bill Clinton's spokesman said that the President may cut short his attendance at the Group of Eight summit to return to the West Asia peace talks at Camp David. "We might go back a little early," Joe Lockhart told reporters travelling with Clinton. He would not say when the President might depart.

At Ramallah in the West Bank, Palestinians today said they have made no progress on any issue in the marathon peace summit with Israel and, in particular, said they had rejected an Israeli plan to split occupied East Jerusalem.

"Until now they have not reached any agreement on any points with the Israeli side nor made any progress on any issue," a Palestinian source close to the negotiating team told AFP here.

The main bone of contention at the Camp David Summit between the two leaders is the highly-charged issue of Jerusalem, which both claim as their capital.

The sources said the Americans had called on some Arab nations to intervene to convince arafat to soften his stance, particularly on jerusalem, but added that the leaders of jordan and egypt had telephoned their palestinian counterpart to express support for his position.

Palestinian sources said israel had proposed dividing East Jerusalem into three sectors -- one under full Israeli control, another under Palestinian control but without sovereignty and a third where the Palestinians had civilian authority but Israel retained security control.

Israel also proposed that the Al-Aqsa mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam, be put into the custody of the United Nations and certain Arab and Islamic nations, while the Palestinians would have the right to raise their flag there.

"Arafat rejected all these proposals and insisted on the return of all of East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state," the source said by telephone from Camp David.

At Thurmont, Boucher added that a three-way meeting between Albright, Arafat and Barak -- in what would be only the third such meeting between the leaders of the three delegations apart from meals -- was possible, but not set and dismissed suggestions that clinton's absence would reduce the intensity of the talks.

"The effort has certainly not slackened in any way," he said, adding Clinton, who announced the resumption of the talks in a surprise post-midnight statement less than two hours after the White House had declared them over with no agreement, was hopeful but not confident of further progress.

And, he noted that the continuation of the summit, the second extension of discussions since their originally scheduled July 18 close, was not indefinite.

"We've made quite clear we don't think it's useful to go on for an unlimited amount of time," Boucher said.