Summit to focus on ending bloodbath, not brokering peace

Summit to focus on ending bloodbath, not brokering peace
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

PARIS, OCT 14: A Middle East summit expected to take place in Egypt at the weekend will focus on "ending the bloodbath" instead of negotiating peace, the Palestinian authority's representative in Paris said today.

If such a summit is organised, "it will be to end the bloodbath but it will not be a summit to negotiate peace," Leila Shahid said in an interview with Europe 1 radio here.

Violence between Palestinians and Israel in the West Bank and Gaza has left more than 100 dead in the last two weeks, bringing the peace process to its knees.

Shahid also said the Palestinians were demanding that before a summit takes place, Israel authorities "lift their blockade in Gaza and remove their tanks from Palestinian towns."

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat told UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and French President Jacques Chirac that he has agreed to attend a summit, expected to begin tomorrow in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Annan met both Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak yesterday.

Barak said yesterday he was prepared to attend the summit so long as there were no preconditions from the Palestinians and that it would end the violence.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said today no preconditions had been lodged by either side for an Israeli-Palestinian summit, although he added there had been "suggestions" of "certain demands."

"There were no preconditions. There were suggestions and certain demands. But we did discuss it with the parties," Annan told reporters in Jerusalem.

"It is not unusual in a situation like this you have a cease-fire, a cessation of hostilities for the period leading to the summit and during the summit and then trying to make it a permanent cease-fire," Annan added.

US President Bill Clinton said that a breakthrough in the ongoing Middle East crisis may be imminent, thanks to a flurry of White House-led international diplomatic initiatives. "We may get a breakthrough sometime in the next several hours. We're working hard trying to turn this thing around," the US president said.

"I hope you'll all say a prayer for us tonight," he added.

Clinton added that he has "been on the phone all day today and has some more work to do late tonight" to try to restore calm to the Middle East, which has been wrecked by some of the worst violence in decades.

Russian President Vladimir Putin urged Arafat and Barak to take decisive steps to stop the violence in West Asia. "The latest outbreak of violence in the Palestinian territories has brought the situation in West Asia to a dangerous turn," said Putin's statement, issued by the Kremlin yesterday.

"Further escalation of the conflict would lead to new, even more numerous casualties, and inflict a heavy blow to the peace process".

At France, EU leaders attending a summit today said only negotiations would lead to a halt in the spiralling violence in the Middle East, according to the draft text of a statement obtained by AFP.

"For the Israeli Prime Minister and the president of the Palestinian Authority, there is no other path than the one of peace and negotiation" on the basis of the Camp David accords, the draft text said.

"Time is running out," added the French-language text. "EU heads of state and government call upon the parties to participate at a summit meeting to resume dialogue with all urgency."

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar raised the possibility that the summit could take place in Egypt as early as Saturday, and that he hoped the EU would be represented, a Spanish official said.

Former Israeli leader Shimon Peres, now a Minister in Barak's government, was present at the EU summit that opened today under tight security in this French Basque seaside town.