Clinton assesses results of weeklong talks

Saturday, December 23rd 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ President Clinton is getting a report of apparently inconclusive Mideast peace talks from Israeli and Palestinian negotiators before plotting his next move in a final drive for an accord.

Among the options are sending an envoy to the region or arranging another round after an interlude. The current phase was nearing an end, though, as Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami made plans to fly home Saturday night.

White House spokesman P.J. Crowley said Clinton would assess the progress made at the talks at Bolling Air Force Base here and what remains to be done.

Saturday, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat arrived in Jordan to brief King Abdullah II on the peace talks. Arafat will meet separately with the king and Jordanian Prime Minister Ali Abu-Ragheb before leaving Sunday, according to a Palestinian representative, speaking on condition of anonymity in Amman.

Palestinians accused Israel of backtracking Friday as the two sides weighed the future of Jerusalem's holy sites and Palestinian refugees. Each side looked to the other for critical concessions.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami told American Jewish leaders in a telephone report that the Temple Mount, revered by observant Jews as the site of the ancient Temple, was on the negotiating table.

``For all practical purposes, the Arabs are in control of the Haram,'' Morton A. Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, quoted Ben-Ami as saying. Haram as-Sharif, the Al-Aqsa mosque on the site, is holy to Muslims.

``There is a real will from (Palestinian leader Yasser) Arafat to strike a deal,'' Ben-Ami said, according to Klein.

The Palestinians, meanwhile, suggested the talks were snagged.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a member of the Palestinian delegation, said Israel had pulled back on an earlier offer on Jerusalem, one of the most contentious issues.

``They gave us positive indications on the issue of Jerusalem, but they went back on it,'' Rabbo said.

``On some of the ideas they had proposed concerning Jerusalem, the Israelis stepped back, concerning Haram,'' he said. ``We are facing a crisis. We are not close on any of the issues.''

``I hope it's temporary,'' said Hassan Abdel Rahman, the Palestine Liberation Organization's representative in Washington. ``But there a change of position by the Israelis.''

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright spoke with the delegations for two hours. President Clinton was due to meet with them Saturday at the White House before what loomed as an inconclusive windup.

Albright's discussions were ``very serious'' and the two delegations outlined to her ``where they are and where they need to be,'' said Philip Reeker, a State Department spokesman.

Albright and Dennis B. Ross, the senior U.S. mediator, arranged a dinner Friday night with Ben-Ami at the foreign minister's hotel, within walking distance of the White House for Saturday's meeting. He and other observant Jews do not ride on the Sabbath.

The talks at Bolling Air Force Base were designed by the American hosts to be shrouded in secrecy. But as in past such efforts varying accounts of the deliberations emerged.

Ben-Ami told the American Jewish leaders, for instance, that Israel was insisting that the Palestinians drop their demand for a ``right of return'' of millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants, Klein said.

Also, the foreign minister was quoted as saying Israel was determined to retain control of ``Jewish Jerusalem,'' which suggests Israel was willing to relinquish predominantly Arab parts of the city.

The Israelis disputed the Palestinian assertions that Israel had retreated on Jerusalem's future.

``The negotiations are difficult by their very nature because we are dealing with complex issues,'' said Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Embassy. ``Anyone who thought it would be smooth sailing all the time is deluding himself.''

``On the other hand,'' Regev told The Associated Press, ``it is wrong to characterize what has happened in the last 24 hours as a crisis.''

``There is no backtracking,'' he said. ``The Palestinians cannot expect that only the Israeli side presents flexible positions.''