Clinton may attend summit

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, OCT. 14. The President, Mr. Bill Clinton, has taken the position that ending the violence in West Asia and coaxing the Israelis and the Palestinians to start negotiations will be difficult; but at the same time, there is hope for a breakthrough. Officials in the administration are now saying that Washington has been encouraged by the progress achieved by the United Nations Secretary General, Mr. Kofi Annan.

From New York, the word is that Mr. Annan has been successful in putting finishing touches for a special summit in Egypt and that the final word is being awaited from Cairo on the subject. Senior Palestinian officials are non-committal but reports have it that Mr. Yasser Arafat will attend the meeting. Mr. Clinton is expected to travel to this emergency session in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

The President has been pushing for a summit without any pre- conditions. But with the worst scale of violence witnessed between the Israelis and the Palestinians in the last several years, the focus will be on some kind of a lasting truce. Few in the Clinton administration have any illusions of using the special summit as a mechanism to restart the Israeli-Palestinian political dialogue.

``Even if the violence stops, it will be very difficult to move on to the negotiating table immediately. Some sort of cooling off period needs to occur before they can sit down and work through their differences'', the White House spokesman, Mr. Jake Siewert, has remarked.

The White House has not formally commented on the status of the special West Asia summit. Mr. Clinton who cancelled his speaking and fund-raising activities spread across several States, has been working hard to find a way to end the violence and the ensuing political mess in West Asia. On Friday, he is said to have spoken three times to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia; the United Nations Secretary General; the British Prime Minister; the Egyptian President; and the leader of Morocco.

In an election year there is political pressure on the administration as well. With the Palestinian representatives in New York threatening to take the issue of violence and clashes to the 188-member U.N. General Assembly, the U.S. has made it very clear that it will veto any resolution that is attempted in the Security Council.

The U.S. abstention from voting on a resolution criticising Israel last week did not go down well. Even the First Lady, Ms Hillary Rodham Clinton, running for a Senate seat in New York distanced herself from the administration's position.

On Friday, Republican and Democratic law makers on Capitol Hill slammed the Palestinian leader. As many as 90 Senators wrote to the President expressing solidarity with Israel and criticising the ``continuing, coordinated campaign of Palestinian violence''. The letter was signed by both the Senate Majority Leader, Mr. Trent Lott, and the Minority Leader, Mr. Tom Daschle.

``That campaign leads us to believe that Arafat either seeks to use violence as a negotiating tool to extort even further concessions from the Government of Israel or that he in fact intends to end the peace process in its entirety as a prelude to unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood'', the Senators maintained.

In the House of Representatives, 64 members have introduced a resolution condemning Mr. Arafat and calling for support to Israel. According to the Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Mr. Benjamin Gilman, the Palestinian leader was attempting to dictate Israeli concessions through ``unbridled use of violence and most appallingly through the manipulation of young children as martyrs in training''.

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Section  : International
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