MIDDLE EAST: BARAK BRIEFS CABINET LATEST
(21 Jan 2001) Natural Sound Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak briefed his cabinet on Sunday after accepting a Palestinian proposal for marathon peace talks in Egypt. Palestinians welcomed the Israeli decision, saying they were determined to explore all the possibilities for reaching an agreement. Meeting late on Saturday, Barak's "Peace Cabinet" agreed to attend up to 10 days of intensive talks, due to start late Sunday at the Red Sea resort of Taba. Barak briefed the cabinet on the decisions of the "Peace Cabinet" and discussed the possibilities of this last effort to reach a settlement. The Israeli team will be headed by Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami and will include Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, an architect of interim Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements, and Cabinet Minister Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, who like Barak is a former military chief. Yossi Sarid, the leader of the dovish Meretz party, will be joining the talks periodically. Barak and elder statesman Shimon Peres will be "guiding" the negotiations but will not be joining them at the initial stage. On the Palestinian side, the team will be headed by parliamentary speaker Ahmed Qureia and will include Erekat, Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, senior peace negotiator Nabil Shaath and others. Arafat, like Barak, will be absent at the initial stage. While the cabinet meeting took place, right wing protesters were demonstrating against the peace talks. Settlers with banners and Israeli flags stood outside Barak's office in Jerusalem and demanded he cease any negotiations until after February elections. SOUNDBITE: (English) "Those Israelis were murdered with the guns that you gave to the murderer Arafat. You, Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres, you gave guns to murderers and those Arafat murderers murdered our friends, our brothers, our sisters." SUPER CAPTION: Nadya Matar, settlers' spokeswoman Chief Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaat says the forthcoming talks between the Israelis and Palestinians in Taba are due to progress achieved between the two sides in recent days. SOUNDBITE: (English) "I think there is some progress that has been made on the issues of territories and of land and partially on the issue of Jerusalem. Also I think there has been progress made on the issue of security a permanent solution but there remains issues on Jerusalem that need to be resolved and of course the refugee issue which the gap is still much wider. SUPER CAPTION: Nabil Shaat, Top Palestinian negotiator Shaat, Palestinian minister of planning, spoke in Gaza before leaving for Taba in Egypt to attend the 10 day peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Shaat refused to give detailed schedule for the talks but insisted that the Palestinians will not work under any pressure of time. SOUNDBITE: (English) "We are not going to make an agreement just because time is running out. Under this terror time you cannot reach an agreement that can last, having said that we will also try our best it is possible to reach an agreement based on resolutions 242 and 194 based on our rights and necessity of having an agreement that can live and can really become permanent and has to be accepted by our people and the Israeli people. It is hard and we will do our best and if that brings about an agreement we will be very happy if not we will not accept the terror of time and we shall continue." SUPER CAPTION: Nabil Shaat, Top Palestinian negotiator Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat proposed the talks earlier this week. Clinton welcomed the idea. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: / ap_archive Facebook: / aparchives Instagram: / apnews You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...
