(4 Jan 2000) English/Nat
While Israeli-Syrian peace talks appear to be stuck on procedural issues, US State Department spokesman James Rubin claims many of the problems that came up on Monday have now been overcome.
President Clinton pledged to return to the negotiations on Tuesday to try to set the two sides on course for reaching a landmark land-for-peace accord.
In advance of Clinton's arrival, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met with Barak to try to resolve differences between the two sides over what divisive issue should be negotiated first.
The disagreement apparently centres over the timing of discussions on an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights - at the beginning of the talks, as Syria wanted, or at the end, which Israel preferred.
A source close to the Syrian delegation said that if the priorities issue was resolved, the committees handling security, water rights, borders and the normalisation would meet.
Clinton, who has made Mideast peace a top foreign policy goal for 2000, has signaled that he is available all week long to assist, if necessary.
The agreement reached today by the negotiators, Saeb Erekat for the Palestinians and Oded Eran for the Israelis, improves the atmosphere of talks toward reaching a final peace treaty.
The two sides have set a February 13 deadline for agreement on a framework for the final treaty.
Little in the way of news is seeping out.
But Lockhart and Rubin said the two sides were getting into the serious issues.
That means how much land Barak is willing to relinquish, the nature of the peace Syria would commit itself to in return and also the extent of U.S. involvement in maintaining security along a new border between the two old foes.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We have been able today to constitute all the relevant committees and we believe that all the issues will be discussed over the next couple of days in a variety
between Syrian officials, Israeli officials and American officials. So in short the procedural hurdle that emerged yesterday has been overcome and we are proceeding with haste. As I said yesterday the officials in the talks were not using Charles Dickens's 'Great Expectations' as their book of the day and as you can see, neither are they using Charles Dickens's 'Bleak House' as the book of the day."
SUPER CAPTION: James Rubin, State Department Spokesman
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