The former head of Israel’s intelligence service held secret talks with a senior Palestinian official six weeks ago in an attempt to curb the violence of the past two years. Israeli and Palestinian officials confirmed this week that the meeting took place in the Middle East state of Qatar, but each side saw it differently.
A senior Israeli government source said Ephraim Halevy, the former Mossad chief who heads the country’s National Security Council, met a ”dissident” Palestinian official to lay the ground for peace talks that bypass Yasser Arafat.
The source said: ”The prime minister has said several times that the government is prepared to talk to Palestinian leaders who want to talk about peace. Not those who say they want peace but continue to support terrorism, but those who really want peace.”
Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, however, said the talks took place with Arafat’s approval and dismissed the Israeli statements as an attempt to divide the Palestinian leadership.
Both parties declined to identify the Palestinian negotiator. A likely candidate is Arafat’s deputy as head of Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas, who has been in Qatar for several weeks because of a death in the family. Neither party would reveal the outcome of the talks.
The meeting was revealed on the day the United States announced that a senior State Department official, William Burns, will travel to Israel next week to try to revive the latest peace plan. Details of whom Burns will meet were unclear on Thursday.
The Israeli government said it is not aware of any new proposals by Washington.
Meanwhile, Israeli politicians have criticised Britain’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair, for calling at the United Kingdom’s Labour party conference on Tuesday for negotiations to be revived before the end of the year to establish an independent Palestinian state, and for saying that United Nations resolutions should be binding on all Middle East countries, not only Iraq.
A Cabinet minister said he was ”disturbed” by what he saw as Blair’s equating of Israel and Iraq. — (c) Guardian Newspapers 2002