Israeli and Palestinian officials said Friday that there was only one more month left to reach a peace accord, after the United States failed to break the impasse between them.
"If in a month it becomes clear that it's impossible to reach an agreement, the state of Israel will concern itself with internal changes," Israeli Prime Minister Barak told Israeli public TV in a broadcast from New York.
Hassan Abdel Rahman, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) representative to Washington, told AFP before Palestinian President Yasser Arafat left New York, "we still have four to five weeks left" to negotiate an agreement.
"The discussions will continue, there was a good exchange of ideas" between Arafat and US President Bill Clinton, he added.
Clinton, Barak and Arafat were in New York for the United Nations Millennium Summit, which was attended by 147 world leaders.
US officials were clearly disappointed at the lack of progress towards a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians, but still held out hopes that a final settlement could materialize.
"This whole Middle East thing is maddening," Clinton said as he was photographed at a meeting with Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, raising his arms in arms in exasperation. He declined to answer any further questions on the matter.
"Are we disappointed?," rhetorically asked a senior US official, who asked not to be named. "Yes we are. We had hopes for progress. They did not come. Clearly an opportunity has been lost, but it does not take away from our determination to stay engaged."
Israel and the Palestinians had set a September 13 deadline for a final peace accord including the status of Jerusalem, the borders of a future Palestinian state, the fate of Palestinian refugees and Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza strip.
But the negotiations stumbled over the question of Jerusalem, a holy city to Jews, Muslims and Christians.
Barak said Friday that Arafat had shown no signs of flexibility. However the Israeli prime minister also insisted that the negotiations were not over, despite pessimistic remarks from members of his delegation.
Asked in an interview with CNN if he had seen signs of flexibility, Barak replied: "I did not, I should admit, but it doesn't mean that the whole thing is closed."
He added: "I believe that he (Arafat) felt very clearly that the free world and non-aligned world expect him to move ... If he will continue to feel that the approach of most of the world leaders is that he should move, he will ultimately move."
Clinton met separately with Barak and Arafat Wednesday, but failed to break the deadlock. The high-level meetings were the first since the Camp David summit ended July 25 with no agreement.
Barak said he was willing to consider far-reaching ideas on Jerusalem.
"I told President Clinton, some of your ideas are beyond what I can think of as acceptable, but if chairman Arafat will be willing to take them as a basis for negotiations, we will be ready as well," he told CNN.
On Thursday, Barak told a press conference that “the only issue now in dispute was Temple Mount, known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, the site of the first and second Jewish Temples, destroyed by the Babylonians in 538 BC and the Romans in 70 AD.”
On top of the ruins of the old temples, Muslims built the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa, the third holiest site to Islam.
Arafat is seeking full Palestinian sovereignty over the site, which is within the walls of the Old City in east Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
Arafat left New York on Friday afternoon to attend a meeting of the Palestinian Central Council in Gaza City on Saturday and Sunday.
According to reports from Gaza Friday, the Council was likely to decide to postpone a declaration of Palestinian statehood, which Arafat had originally set for September 13 – UNITED NATIONS (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
