White House officials said Friday that the meeting – like a similar meeting earlier in the week – is intended to update the president on progress made in this week's negotiations at Bolling Air Force Base, and to map out the next steps in the search for peace in the region.
A top Palestinian official Friday denied there had been progress in talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators meeting in Washington.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, an aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, told the Voice of Palestine radio that reports of progress in the talks were "not accurate."
"Until this moment, there has been no serious progress achieved in spite of the deep discussion of sensitive and major issues with the participation of U.S. President Bill Clinton," he said.
Israelis and Palestinians were negotiating final status issues through a U.S. mediator in a bid to first end the bloody clashes in the Palestinian territories and then reach a permanent settlement to end a conflict that has lasted 52 years.
"It is too early to speak about progress, while Israel has not yet presented anything new related to the Palestinian demands," Abu Rudeineh said. "The gaps are still wide."
The Palestinians want a complete Israeli military withdrawal from the territories it occupied during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, including east Jerusalem, which Israel annexed after the war.
"The Israeli position did not go far from what they discussed with us in Camp David," Abu Rudeineh said.
Abu Rudeineh warned that the entire region would face more wars if Israel did not implement U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which call for its complete withdrawal to the 1967 borders, including East Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, Arafat said there had been no final results at the talks. Arafat said, "until now we have not received any final results."
"Palestinians hope that there will be an agreement," he said after a meeting with the German defense minister in Gaza.
Palestinian analysts said that if the two sides failed to reach agreement on all the outstanding final status issues within the next two days, there would be no likelihood of further talks for at least a year. This was because the new U.S. administration would need time to appoint a Middle East diplomatic team and to lay the groundwork for new negotiations.
Six people were killed Friday in clashes between Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, in renewed violence that included an apparent suicide bombing at an Israeli inn in the Jordan Valley.
The surge in confrontations coincided with conflicting reports on the progress of peace talks in Washington. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was expected to join those talks, sequestered on an air force base.
An Israeli television reporter said a Palestinian sat down on the porch of an inn in Mehola and set off explosives attached to a belt. Israelis said the apparent suicide bomber and an Israeli were killed and seven other Israelis were injured in the Friday afternoon incident, which was near a road where an Israeli teacher was killed Thursday night.
In other Mideast violence Friday, an Arab was killed by Palestinian gunmen firing on a settlement in the Gaza Strip and a young Palestinian in a settlement near Hebron was killed as he allegedly tried to stab a settler. The commander of the Israeli troops in the Ramallah area said there had recently been a drop in the number of shooting incidents, but an increase in the number of "murderous attacks."
Two 17-year-old Palestinians died after clashes near Hebron and Ramallah while a 52-year-old man died after he was caught in an exchange of fire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians near Netsarim. Palestinian radio said some 40 people were injured in various clashes, with seven of them suffering serious injuries.
In Jerusalem's Old City, Palestinian stone throwers clashed with police who reportedly retaliated with stun grenades and rubber bullets.
Police said 45,000 Muslim worshippers attended Friday's services at the Temple Mount, which the Moslems call Haram e-Sharif. It was the last Friday in the holy month of Ramadan. The number of worshippers was limited by Israeli officials. Palestinian sources said that most years some 400,000 Muslims would attend services at Haram e-Sharif.
Israeli journalists complained policemen had attacked them, prevented them from reaching the site of the clashes at the Via Dolorosa and confiscated a reporter's notes. Minutes after Israel Radio reported the complaints, police let the reporters reach the site of the clashes.
Lead Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami met with Clinton Wednesday for about 45 minutes, and emerged saying the president remains ready to host a tri-lateral summit, but only if the talks make enough progress to suggest a summit could produce a peace deal. The are expected to return to the White House Saturday along with Secretary of State Madeliene Albright and other top U.S officials,
White House spokesman Jake Siewert said Friday, "Certainly we hope that the parties redouble their efforts and do everything they can to help find a way to end the violence and to narrow their differences. The president is ready and willing to help, if necessary when the talks wrap up , we'll make judgments about what to do next."
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