Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was on the brink of cancelling his trip to Paris Wednesday after Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's initial refusal to meet him there, Barak's office said in a statement.
The United States is trying to bring the two leaders together in Paris in an effort to quell six days of deadly Israel-Palestinian clashes and put the peace process back on track.
Barak later stuck to his plans after being informed Arafat would meet him, although in Paris Wednesday the Palestinian leader laid down conditions for any direct talks.
Arafat said he would only meet Barak if an international commission of inquiry into the violence in Israel was set up and provisions were made for the protection of Palestinian civilians.
Barak's office said it had informed the Americans Tuesday that he did not intend to travel to France after an announcement by Palestinian international cooperation minister Nabil Shaath that Arafat was not interested in meeting him.
But later a senior US official said that in fact Arafat did intend to meet Barak "and thus the visit and the meetings will be held as planned," the statement said.
Shaath had told AFP that the Palestinians first wanted an end to the "aggression" against their people, a withdrawal of Israeli forces and the formation of an international committee to investigate the violence.
Later, the secretary general of the Palestinian Authority, Tayeb Abdel Rahim, told AFP the two leaders would meet after all.
A total of 66 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed in the worst unrest to rock the region in four years -- JERUSALEM (AFP)
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