President Clinton claimed to have made progress towards peace at a Middle East summit at the White House yesterday. However, he admitted failing to clinch agreement on a long-standing US proposal for Israel to withdraw troops from the West Bank in return for Palestinian security guarantees.
The White House had requested a three-way meeting with the embattled President in an apparent attempt to prove that its foreign policy leadership had not been crippled by sexual scandal and the imminent threat of impeachment proceedings.
However, after the 100-minute summit with the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, there was little sign of a breakthrough in the Oslo peace process after 18 months of deadlock.
President Clinton concluded the summit on the most optimistic note possible, saying: "I believe that we all agreed that there was a significant narrowing of the gaps between the two parties across a wide range of issues that were in the American initiative that we have been working on for months."
But, he admitted: "I think, also - to be candid - there is still a substantial amount of work to be done before a comprehensive agreement can be reached."
He did not give details on the remaining obstacles to approving the US initiative, first floated in January.
That proposal involves the pullback of Israeli troops from 13 per cent of the West Bank in three phased withdrawals, contingent on Palestinian progress in suppressing Islamic militant groups.
In an attempt to squeeze out enough progress to justify a White House summit, the Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, met the Israeli and Palestinian leaders late on Saturday night and then again on Sunday evening in talks which lasted until the early hours of yesterday morning.
President Clinton said he had asked both leaders to return to Washington in mid-October to resume the discussions, by which time a full-blown congressional impeachment inquiry is expected to be underway. Ms Albright has been ordered to Israel in the next few days along with the special envoy, Mr Dennis Ross, in order to improve the October summit's chances of success.
The White House is reported to have exerted pressure on Mr Arafat not to use his address to the UN General Assembly yesterday afternoon to repeat his threat to declare a Palestinian state next May. Mr Arafat deleted the threat from a speech on Sunday to the Centre for Middle East Peace and Economic Co-operation in Washington, but alluded indirectly to his intentions.
The international community - all peace-loving people - must exert every possible effort to insure the implementation of the agreements by May 4th, 1999," he said. "It cannot come and go like any other day."
David Horovitz adds from Jerusalem: Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, could appoint Mr Ariel Sharon, the former general and current minister of infrastructure, to the key post of foreign minister, with the brief of overseeing negotiations on a permanent peace accord with the Palestinians, Israel's state radio reported yesterday.
The appointment would apparently depend on an agreement being reached soon between Israel and the Palestinians on an overdue, interim phase of the peace process. No such deal was finalised during yesterday's largely unproductive Middle East summit at the White House, but the two sides are to intensify their efforts over the next two weeks.
According to the Israel Radio reports, the prime minister believes that, by promoting Mr Sharon and giving him responsibility for the most critical, final stage of peace negotiations with the Palestinians, he would be able to minimise right-wing opposition to peace moves and thus keep his coalition government intact. Mr Sharon, who as minister of defence 16 years ago orchestrated Israel's disastrous invasion of Lebanon, has become one of the most vociferous critics of Mr Netanyahu's handling of the peace process.