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Barak Says He Did Not Lay out Ultimatum
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday said that he did not lay out an ultimatum to the Palestinians but had only talked about self-evident consequence of the escalating violence between the Israelis and Palestinians.
"I didn't lay out an ultimatum. I said the obvious, almost self-evident consequence," Barak said in an interview with CBS television network.
Barak reportedly issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Saturday, saying that unless the Palestinian leader stops violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel will call off peace talks and let Israeli troops act with full force.
"If Arafat, who can easily order an end to the whole violence that we are facing, is not doing it within reasonable time frame, let's say two days, we won't have but only way to conclude that he deliberately has decided to abandon the negotiation process, and is preferring a confrontation," Barak said at the CBS interview.
As to the three Israeli soldiers captured by Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas on Saturday, Barak insisted that Israel will identify Syria as the source of responsibility for any attack against Israel from the soil of Lebanon because Damascus is a prominent power player in Lebanon.
In an interview with the ABC television network on Sunday, Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi refuted Israeli position that Arafat could easily put the violence to an end by a single order.
She said that the Israeli side which occupies Palestinian land and provoked the violence should take actions to end the tragedy.
At least 80 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed in the Israeli-Palestinian clashes beginning on September 28.
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