MIDDLE EAST: An Israeli and a Palestinian official, both of whom participated in negotiations last year at Taba, appealed at the weekend for a resumption of peace talks and suggested they should pick up where they left off on January 27th, 2001.
Mr Yossi Beilin, a member of the Knesset and former Israeli justice minister, and Mr Yasser Abed Rabbo, a minister in the Palestinian Authority, made the appeal at the French National Assembly. Both are members of the Israeli-Palestinian "Coalition for Peace", established at a military checkpoint last month.
"Checkpoints are the only place where we can meet in the Middle East," Mr Beilin said. "We have to come to Paris to sit down and talk." The speakers of the Israeli and Palestinian legislatures and the leader of the Meretz party, Mr Yossi Sarid, also joined the peace coalition.
Mr Beilin and Mr Abed Rabbo said Israelis and Palestinians were never so close to agreement as at Taba. But Mr Ariel Sharon was about to be elected Prime Minister and he had already declared that he would not respect an accord reached by the Barak government. Mr Abed Rabbo denounced what he called Israeli and US "propaganda" blaming the Palestinians for the failure of the Camp David talks in July 2000, as "a pretext to continue the war".
