Arafat Hopeful Despite Arab Rejection of Key Issue

Jan. 4 -- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said today he hoped to reach a final peace agreement with Israel before President Clinton leaves office on Jan. 20.

“We hope so. We hope for that, according to the promise by President Clinton, to make every possible effort before the period ends,” Arafat told reporters today. He declined, however, to answerdirectly a question about his final word on Clinton’s proposals.

Arafat’s assurances came after his return from Cairo, where he was sounding out Arab foreign ministers about a U.S. peace proposal for the Middle East.

Arab foreign ministers had earlier dug in their heels at the Cairo meeting, urging Arafat not to give in to a key concession under the latest U.S. peace proposal.

Insisting that Palestinian refugees’ right of return is “sacred,” Arab leaders have left Arafat with little wiggle room to negotiate within Clinton’s proposals.

“I would like to point out that Lebanon has totally rejected the idea of resettling the Palestinian refugees [permanently] and insisted on the right of the Palestinians to return. We believe that this is a sacred right,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa, speaking as the chairman of today’s meeting, told reporters after the talks.

On Wednesday, White House spokesman Jake Siewert said Arafat had accepted the proposals — with some reservations — during talks with Clinton in Washington on Tuesday.

Arafat’s new moves for peace, however modest, came as senior Israeli envoy Gilead Sher makes his way to Washington to quiz American mediators on Arafat’s conditional acceptance of the U.S. deal.

The White House said Arafat had given conditional approvalto U.S. proposals for a peace deal, but Palestinian officialssaid one of the conditions he had set was that refugees musthave the right to return to their homes.