The Palestinian leader told reporters after meeting Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak at his summer palace in the Mediterranean Port of Alexandria that Israel had put forward interpretations of some articles "that have nothing to do" with the actual text of the land-for-security agreement.

"We are not asking for the impossible, we are asking for an accurate and honest implementation of what has been agreed on ... In Wye plantation (in October 1998)," Arafat said.

But he also said the Palestinians would accept starting the final status talks with the beginning of the implementation of the third phase of the Wye Agreement.

He said while Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has declared that he is committed to Wye, the Israeli negotiators were coming up with complications regarding the time-table of the Israeli troop withdrawalfrom the West Bank as forseen in the agreement.

The Palestinian leader said he explained to Mubarak all the difficulties the Palestinians were facing in order to help his mediation efforts with the Israeli side.

Commenting on the postponement of US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's visit to the region, Arafat said the decision came in response to a request by Barak because he did not want any US or Arab interference in the dispute over the timetable of the troop pullout.

Egyptian Foreign minister Amr Mussa, who attended the talks, said the situation had not assumed crisis-proportions. He said he hoped that the coming Israeli-Palestinian meetings would succeed in overcoming the differences.