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Middle East peace talks begin in Maryland
In this story:
- U.S. mediating closed-door Netanyahu-Arafat meetings
- Summit runs through Sunday
- Palestinians float security plan
- Related Video
- Related stories and sites
Web posted at: 9:22 p.m. EDT (0122 GMT)
QUEENSTOWN, Maryland (CNN) -- Israeli and Palestinian negotiators and U.S. mediators are meeting behind closed doors at a picturesque Maryland resort, trying to reach an agreement to reignite the stalled Middle East peace process.
Sitting around a U-shaped table with Palestinians on one side, Israelis on the other and Americans in between, delegates to the peace summit -- including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat -- were welcomed to the Wye River Conference Centers late Thursday afternoon by U.S. President Bill Clinton.
"There is hard work ahead if we are to reach an agreement here," said Clinton, who was scheduled to meet with each side separately and then attend a joint dinner before returning to the White House. "We have a lot of work to do, a limited amount of time to do it in, but we're ready to get to work."
After the brief welcoming ceremony, media representatives were shown to the door.
"All of us are determined to keep our energies focused on the talks themselves. Therefore, we have agreed to confine our dealings on this subject with the media to periodic briefings to be conducted by spokespersons," Clinton said.
The location for the summit is on Maryland's Eastern Shore, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) from Washington. Although there is no firm timetable for the talks, U.S. officials said they most likely would run through Sunday.
By then, both the Israelis and Palestinians expect to have a deal, CNN has learned.
Earlier in the day, Clinton met with Netanyahu and Arafat in the Oval Office, and the three came outside the White House for a joint appearance.
The summit "offers the parties a chance to break the logjam," Clinton said. "These two leaders have the power to lead their people to peace."
Assembled together, the three leaders did not discuss the key issue -- further Israeli troop withdrawals from the West Bank in exchange for stricter Palestinian measures against terrorism.
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But afterward, Netanyahu told reporters that if the upcoming summit succeeds, "then we'll enter final status talks" for a full Israeli-Palestinian peace accord.
Arafat, who then held his own impromptu news conference, echoed Netanyahu's public optimism that the summit would end successfully. But when asked about Netanyahu's demand for a crackdown on anti-Israeli terrorists, the Palestinian leader suggested there are militants on both sides.
"Some of the extremists ... have killed my friend Rabin," he said, referring to former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was gunned down in 1995 by Yigal Amir, a Jew opposed to Rabin's peace moves.
Palestinians float security plan
CNN has learned that the Palestinians have, in secret meetings with the Israelis, presented a concrete plan for fighting Islamic violence against Israel, which includes a crackdown on Islamic military organizations and the collection of illegal weapons.
The Palestinian proposals are expected to be folded into an existing American blueprint for security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinians.
Netanyahu has made enforceable security guarantees the prerequisite for transferring an additional 13 percent of land in the West Bank to Palestinian control.
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said the Clinton administration, working with Israel, is developing "a parallel process" in which security measures by the Palestinians would be coordinated with an Israeli pullback on the West Bank.
She called security the essential "building block" of the agreement the administration is trying to nail down and said "there has to be a lot of effort" by the Palestinians to back up promises to combat terrorism.
"We're trying to make the promises as concrete as possible," Albright said.
The Middle East peace process, which has been at a standstill for 19 months, faces a deadline of May 1999, when a temporary agreement between Israel and the Palestinians expires. The 1993 interim agreement was reached during secret negotiations in Oslo, Norway.
Correspondents Wolf Blitzer, Walter Rodgers and Reuters contributed to this report.
