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Albright, Barak, Arafat Begin Three-Way Talks
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat began their three-way talks at the residence of the U.S. ambassador here Wednesday afternoon, said diplomatic sources.
The talks were aimed at defusing the week-long conflict in the Palestinian territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank between Israeli troops and Palestinians, which was triggered by a forcible visit to the holy sites in East Jerusalem by Israel's right-wing leader Ariel Sharon last Thursday.
The conflict, in which 67 people -- nearly all of them Palestinians -- have been killed so far, is considered the most serious between Israel and Palestinians since 1996, when a series of bombing attacks shook Israel in the spring of that year.
One 24-year-old Palestinian demonstrator and a nine-year-old child were the latest victims who were killed by Israeli troops and Jewish settlers in Ramallah, the West Bank, Wednesday, while 18 other Palestinians were injured.
Both Palestinians and Israelis hold each other responsible for the unleashing of the violence, and Israel has rejected a Palestinian proposal to establish an international committee to investigate the acts of violence committed by Israeli troops.
Although both Israeli troops and Palestinian police have used real bullets to shoot each other, most Palestinians are using stones to fight Israeli troops armed to the dents.
Arafat has earlier posed three conditions for meeting with Barak, including the immediate stop of shooting by Israeli troops, and pullout of Israeli troops from besieged Palestinians towns and
the Esplanade of Mosques in East Jerusalem.
If the talks cannot result in any truce agreement Wednesday in Paris, they could move on to the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh in Egypt Thursday.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has invited Barak, Arafat and Albright to have more talks Thursday.
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