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CLINTON ADMINISTRATION PREPARES FOR MIDEAST PEACE TALKS
USIA White House Correspondent
Washington -- The Clinton administration has prepared a very flexible schedule for the talks at the Wye River Conference Center in Maryland this weekend between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, say two senior administration officials.
The focus of the talks is for the parties to solve the remaining interim issues in the Middle East Peace Process so they can move on to the Final Status Talks and honor the May 4 deadline specified in the Oslo Agreement.
The senior administration officials spoke at a late October 14 White House briefing on the upcoming meetings.
"We're maintaining maximum flexibility. And when we talked to the President before we came out here, he wanted to maintain maximum flexibility. He wants to be involved throughout the weekend.... I expect he'll be a lot of time there. I expect there'll be lots of bilats (bilaterals), trilats (trilaterals). There'll be walks in the woods. There'll be small dinners, late dinners. I expect we'll be up late. The President likes to stay up late anyway -- and so do they," one of the two administration officials said.
"(It's) just going to be very, very flexible, and we will maintain maximum ability to take advantage of this opportunity" to be away from "outsiders peering in to what we do," he said.
For almost 18 months, the United States has been trying to find a way to get the parties "beyond the interim issues, and to the Final Status Talks," the second senior administration official said.
Even though "a good deal of progress" has been made in the last few weeks, "if we continue to work at the pace we were working, we would not get these issues done by the time May 4 rolls around," he said.
"So one of the reasons for making the decision...to bring the parties with their teams here, was to see if we could change the character of the interaction in such a way that we would in fact be able to bring this to a conclusion," he explained, "because the clock is ticking."
It will be "a very difficult undertaking" but if the parties do not focus on this, disaster looms, he said.
Clinton spoke by phone October 14 to Jordan's King Hussein in Rochester, Minnesota, a senior administration official reported. Clinton "spoke about his expectations for the summit; he asked for the King's advice.
"He also got a readout from the King because today (October 14) Prime Minister Netanyahu and his team were in Amman meeting with the Crown Prince, so this was a chance to get a little bit of a readout from those meetings and talk about the results there.
"Secondly, he spoke to (Britain's) Prime Minister (Tony) Blair. Chairman Arafat today (October 14) arrived in London and Prime Minister Blair and he had a meeting, and the Prime Minister wanted to give the President a readout. Again, the Prime Minister and the President were able to exchange some of their views and expectations about what's coming up next," the senior administration official said.
Netanyahu and Arafat are to meet the morning of October 15 with President Clinton in the Oval Office of the White House.
Following that, Clinton, accompanied by the two Middle East leaders, will go to the Rose Garden, where the President will make a brief public statement.
Afterwards, U.S. Secretary of State Albright will accompany Netanyahu and Arafat to the Wye River Conference Center on the Eastern Shore of Maryland where the talks between the two Middle Eastern leaders are to be held.
Clinton will open the plenary session there later in the day, and then meet separately with Netanyahu and with Arafat.
After that, the three leaders will have dinner together, which also will include the Secretary of State.
Over the weekend, Clinton is expected to remain in close touch with the leaders.