Arafat ready for marathon talks with Israel

Palestinian President Mr Yasser Arafat said today he was ready for marathon peace talks proposed by Israeli Foreign Minister Mr Shlomo Ben-Ami.

Mr Yasser Arafat: Ready for marathon talks with Israel

"We suggested that we go back to talks, for example like the Taba talks that enabled us, as you remember, to reach a lot of important solutions with Rabin and Peres", he said in Cairo.

The Palestinian leader, who had hastily arranged talks with Mr Ben-Ami in Cairo last night, said the Israelis had told him they would think about his suggestion.

Mr Arafat was apparently referring to round-the-clock talks held in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Taba in 1995 to clinch an interim peace deal. The late Yitzhak Rabin was Israel's prime minister at the time. Mr Shimon Peres was foreign minister.

On his return to Gaza, Mr Arafat responded positively when asked about Mr Ben-Ami's proposal for intensive negotiations to try to clinch a last-ditch deal in the three weeks before an Israeli prime ministerial election on February 6th.

We are exerting every effort to remain committed to what we agreed upon in the Sharm elSheikh agreement and we hope that the Israeli side will do the same thing Mr Yasser Arafat

"We agreed to that and we have informed the co-sponsors of the peace process that we are willing to do this", he told reporters.

The co-sponsors of the peace process launched at the 1991 Madrid conference are the United States and Russia. Mr Arafat said the Palestinians remained committed to what was agreed at a US-brokered summit convened in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in October to try to halt the wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence that erupted in late September.

"We are exerting every effort to remain committed to what we agreed upon in the Sharm elSheikh agreement and we hope that the Israeli side will do the same thing", Mr Arafat said on his return to Gaza.

He accused Israel of failing to abide by the accord. "As you see the cities, the villages, the camps are still under siege and there is military escalation", he declared.

Asked if he saw any chance for an agreement with Israel soon, he said: "We hope so, but we need international support to push the peace process forward and preserve it".

Reuters