Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Nation & World No agreement as Israel-Syria negotiations near end by Barry Schweid Associated Press Shepherdstown, W.Va. — Despite President Clinton’s renewed interven tion, Israel-Syria negotiations on a land for-peace treaty appeared to be nearing a close Sunday without even a tentative agreement. Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, describing the weeklong talks over ter ritory, peace terms, water and security as complex and difficult, was making plans to depart for home Monday. Diplomatic sources said Syrian For eign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa was like ly to follow on Tuesday. On the sensitive issue of establishing a new border once Israel pulls back on the Golan Heights, Israeli Foreign Min ister David Levy said “nothing has been agreed upon.” Clinton, who had intervened in the negotiations four times before Sunday, headed back to the site of the talks at nightfall Sunday. “He’s going for meet ings,” a White House official said. “The process continues.” Committees met Sunday on all the key issues, and State Department spokesman Janies Rubin said the two sides responded positively to a statement pre sented Friday by the United States. The seven-page document, which is a summary of points of accord and dis cord, could become the basis for an even tual “core agreement,” Rubin said. But Jie said Israel and Syria still faced “enormous decisions” and “we don’t ex pect those decisions to be made in a mat- i ter of days.” s American mediators hadn’t offered ( “bridging proposals” designed to close the gap where the two sides were in f disagreement, Rubin added. j In Jerusalem, Israel Cabinet Minis- i ter Haim Ramon said Syria had refused to permit Israel to retain an early warn- s ing station on the Golan Heights once it’s , relinquished. 1 But, Ramon said, Syria was prepared t to consider a station manned mostly by American and French personnel, with a Syrian presence and a symbolic Israeli presence. Yielding the plateau would strip Is rael of a capability to watch any Syrian military preparations, including tanks rolling down toward the border. Barak and al-Sharaa could leave be hind experts to continue deliberations. But Rubin said there was no decision on how negotiations would proceed, al though he said the United States wanted full-blown negotiations to reconvene “sooner rather than later.” “There is no doubt that the negoti ation is difficult,” Barak told Israeli re porters while touring the Antietam Na tional Battlefield, a Civil War site in Sharpsbuig, Md., with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. In his first public remarks since the talks began Jan. 3, Barak said “the ne gotiation is very complex.” The prime minister, speaking He brew, also gave assurances to the Israeli public that “we will not sign an agree lent unless, in our opinion, it will trengthen the security of Israel and ad Iress its vital needs.” Israel is contemplating a withdrawal rom the Golan Heights, a border high round with a commanding view of Syr 1, in exchange for a peace treaty. Barak, his wife, Nava, and Levy were hown a 26-minute documentary film ecreating the Antietam battle in which forth and South suffered 22,726 casual iesonSept. 17,1862. They also listened to a lecture about the blood day from a National Park Ser vice ranger and Bruce Reidel, who is on the Near East desk at the National Se curity Council and a Civil Whr buff. Albright then hosted a luncheon for Barak at Hillsboro, her Virginia retreat across the border from West Virginia, and returned to the secluded negotiations site just outside Shepherdstown to meet with al-Sharaa. Also Sunday, AI-Hayat, a Saudi news paper published in London, said Israel had agreed to pull back to the 1923 bor der with Syria and that Syria was insist ing on a deeper pullback, to the border that existed at the eve of the 1967 Mideast war. Rubin said the account wasn’t cred ible. He told reporters the newspaper’s report differed in “substantive ways” from the document prepared at Albright’s direction and presented by Clinton to Barak and al-Sharaa on Friday. In Syria, the state-run Al-Thawra newspaper said Sunday that the West Vir ginia peace talks are “in serious danger. ” “It is clear that there are Israeli di rectives to... break up the talks in an at tempt to add hurdles and hamper them to leave the political process spinning in place,” the newspaper said in an edi torial. Chechnya from page A5 Kukharenko said The Russians liberat ed the post. The rebels’ fate wasn’t known. Chechen presidential spokesman Se lim Abdulmuslimov told the Interfax news agency that about 500 rebels took over the center of Shali on Sunday, rais ing a green Chechen flag, and that fed eral troops were fleeing. But the military reporter didn’t notice any unusual mili tary movements outside the town on Sun day. 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