The United States said Tuesday that senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat would follow acting Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami in meetings in Washington this week with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright aimed at restoring calm in the Middle East.
Erekat, the Palestinians' leader negotiator in peace talks with Israel is expected in Washington on Thursday -- a day after Ben Ami is to meet Albright -- and is due to meet Albright on Friday, a senior State Department official said.
Department spokesman Richard Boucher said no firm schedule had yet been arranged for the Erekat visit. However he confirmed that a Palestinian delegation led by Erekat would be coming to Washington "towards the end of the week."
Boucher told reporters that the intent of Albright's meetings with both Ben Ami and Erekat would be to continue to push for implementation of pledges made by Israel and the Palestinians at the Sharm el-Sheik summit earlier this month.
"The agenda ... is basically the Sharm el-Sheikh agenda," he said.
"It's an opportunity for us to discuss with them the current situation, explore ways that the parties can act to meet their commitments of Sharm el-Sheikh, and to discuss all the items that were on that agenda, including steps to calm the violence, the fact-finding commission, and ways to look for a path back to the peace process," Boucher added.
The October 16-17 Sharm el-Sheikh summit, convened amid escalating deadly violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories, produced several pledges from the parties, including a proposal to send senior officials to Washington within two weeks to look into restarting the peace process.
But with clashes continuing, Boucher allowed that the original intent of the Washington meetings had been forced to be expanded.
"We still have the other items on our agenda ... because the calm has not been restored, the cycle of violence has continued," he said.
In the meantime, Ben Ami said in London on Tuesday that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat must carry the blame for the violence in Gaza and the West Bank between Palestinians and the Israeli army.
The foreign minister, in Britain to meet Prime Minister Tony Blair, told BBC television that Arafat had instigated the violence, which has so far left more than 150 dead, to improve his bargaining position.
"Arafat decided to orchestrate violence in order to force Israel to assume positions in the negotiations which he could not get otherwise," said Ben Ami, adding: "This is no way to no way to run negotiations."
He said that as a result of Israeli concessions, Palestinian areas already had many of the trappings of an autonomous state.
"The problem is that this state is not fulfilling its international obligations and once he (Arafat) is unhappy with the peace proposals that I put on the table, he breaks the rules of the game," said the Israeli foreign minister.
"He signed with us agreements, they are not being abided by," Ben Ami added. "We want Arafat to be a responsible international leader. The problem is, is he really an interlocutor who will respect agreements, just as he did not respect the Sharm el-Sheikh agreements?"
Most of those killed in the violence have been Palestinians, among them children. But Ben Ami insisted they were caught in crossfire, and not targeted by the Israeli army.
The Palestinians were deliberately sending children to throw stones at Israeli soldiers to court international opinion, he said.
"What is the biggest thing, to bring children to an area of conflict or that children are being killed in a situation of cross-fire?" he said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Ben Ami called on Britain and its European partners to put pressure on Arafat to honour the commitments he made at the recent Sharm el-Sheikh summit between Israel and the Palestinians.
Ben Ami had an hour-long meeting in Downing Street with Blair to discuss the violence.
"We would like to see the Europeans exert the necessary pressure on the Palestinians to abide by Sharm el-Sheikh," said Ben Ami after the meeting with Blair.
"I do not come here with a message of despair. We need to maintain the torch of peace alive, we need to insist that peace is possible.
"Sometimes peace can emerge from desperate situations. Perhaps this crisis should be seen as an avenue to a future accommodation, but for this, you need two"
Ben Ami was in London as part of a round of meetings with foreign leaders. On Monday he was in Paris to meet his French opposite number, Hubert Vedrine, and president of the European Commission Romano Prodi – (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
