Mideast summit begins, peace remains elusive

After several hours of talks Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said no progress had been made, while Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak8217;s security chief Danny Yatom spoke of 8220;complications, difficulties and arguments8221;.

US President Bill Clinton had said in an opening statement that the summit could not afford to fail. 8220;We want to end the violence and restore security cooperation, to achieve agreement on an objective and fair fact-finding process on what happened to bring us to this sad point and how can we avoid having it ever happening again, and we want to get the peace process going,8221; he said.

The summit opened 80 minutes later than scheduled after a flurry of bilateral talks between the participants, who also included United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and the European Union8217;s top diplomat, Javier Solana. But Arafat and Barak did not meet, though they met Clinton separately.

Barak set the tone on arrival when he said through his chief spokesman, Nahman Shai, that he was 8220;fed up8221; with Arafat, whom he accused of fomenting the violence that has sparked worldwide outrage among supporters of both sides. Arafat meanwhile was under extreme pressure from hardliners who felt the Sharm el-Sheikh summit was designed to pre-empt an Arab summit set for October 21, to the Israelis8217; advantage.

Radical Palestinian groups as well as his own Fatah movement declared a protest 8220;day of rage8221;, staging demonstrations before renewing clashes with Israeli security forces after several days of relative calm. An aide to Annan told AFP that an 8220;acceptable formula8221; for ending the violence between Israelis and Palestinians was on the table, but gave no details of the proposition that would be put to Arafat and Barak.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Mussa said overnight that despite intensive work by Egyptian and UN officials, there was no guarantee of success because of heightened bitterness between the two sides.

Clinton and the others said they had few illusions about their chances of success at their meeting round an octagonal table in a conference room in this sprawling Red Sea diving resort. The Israelis and Palestinians have been pressing conflicting demands that stem from their blaming each other for the violence.

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who arrived in Egypt along with Clinton, said they would first seek a truce, then ways to prevent a recurrence of the violence after studying its causes, and then a way back to the negotiations.

Thousands of demonstrators also protested against the Sharm el-Sheikh talks in Lebanon, Iran and Iraq, while the Iranian and Syrian press also blasted it. The violence has been blamed for a surge in world oil prices and sparked protests for one side or the other in cities across Asia, Africa, Europe and the US. Oil prices were firm Monday as the summit began, but so were stocks.

The violence started after Israel8217;s hawkish Opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, at the heart of the two sides8217; competing claims to the holy city as their capital, on September 28. The shrine known to Muslims as Haram al-Sherif and to Jews as Temple Mount is also part of a dispute over the future status of Jerusalem, which scuppered the Camp David summit in July.

Fears of a spill-over into other parts of the region increased when Lebanon8217;s Hezbollah Shiite fundamentalist movement, backed by Iran and Syria, announced that it was holding an Israeli intelligence colonel it had lured to Lebanon from Brussels. Israel claims the man is an Israeli businessman, a reserve officer who disappeared recently in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Barak called on Annan Monday to help secure his release.