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Mideast Peace Talks in Works, but Violence Continues
RIYADH, Nov. 21 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - As Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak arrived in Riyadh late Wednesday for talks with Saudi leaders on the Middle East peace process, U.S. President George W. Bush met with two high-level envoys being sent this weekend to the region for peace efforts, news agencies reported.
But as their plans progressed, Israeli troops shot and wounded two young Palestinians Wednesday evening in the southern Gaza Strip near the border with Egypt, Palestinian hospital sources said in an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report.
The Egyptian leader, who was greeted at Riyadh airport by Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, was due to hold talks with King Fahd and Abdullah, who runs the kingdom's day-to-day affairs.
Their discussions will center on the situation in the Palestinian territories, the future of the Middle East peace process, and the repercussions of the Afghan crisis on the Arab world, an Egyptian diplomatic source told AFP.
Mubarak will spend a few hours in Riyadh before returning to Cairo, the diplomat added.
Sources close to Mubarak in the Egyptian capital earlier said he would discuss with Saudi leaders the "American initiative for a settlement of the Middle East problem."
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell announced the initiative in a speech on Monday in which he called on the Palestinian leadership to make a "100 percent" effort to stop the violence, while urging Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Powell and Bush met with the two U.S. envoys, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs William Burns and retired Marine Corps general Anthony Zinni, on Wednesday in preparation for their weekend departure.
Powell announced on Monday that the pair would embark on the mission in the coming days as part of what he promised would be stepped up US engagement in the Middle East; the two are being sent in an effort to secure an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire and get peace talks restarted.
They met "with the president and the secretary and discussed their travel to the region and their goals," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.
"Their job is to get on the ground and work with the parties, help the parties move forward, help the parties come to the understandings that create a real cease-fire, that's the first goal," he said.
Burns is expected to travel throughout the region while Zinni, Powell's unpaid senior advisor on the Middle East, will stay in Israel and the Palestinian territories working on achieving a lasting ceasefire that can pave the way for resumed political negotiations.
Zinni is expected to stay in the area for some time and will be accompanied by Aaron Miller, a senior advisor to Burns, who served as deputy to Dennis Ross, the U.S. special Middle East envoy during the administration of former president Bill Clinton, Boucher said.
At the same time, in South Africa, a meeting scheduled for this weekend in Pretoria between Israeli peace activists and Palestinian officials has been postponed indefinitely, a government official said Wednesday.
The meeting was to be chaired by South African President Thabo Mbeki. Presidential spokesman Bheki Khumalo said the future of the talks was now in the hands of the two sides.
"The ball is in their court. If they still want to come here and meet President Mbeki then I'm sure he will be willing to meet them," he said.
The meeting aimed to bring together Palestinian officials with Israeli peace activists, including Yossi Beilin, an architect of the Israeli-Palestinian interim accords who was a cabinet minister in Israel's previous government.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army denied one of the two shootings of Palestinian youth, near the Jewish settlement of Morag just north of the flashpoint town of Rafah in Gaza.
An 11-year-old Palestinian boy was shot in the leg as he strayed too close to an Israeli military checkpoint guarding the settlement, Palestinian hospital sources said.
Another boy, 16, was wounded in the shoulder in similar circumstances in the nearby area of Tal Essultan, they said.
Although the army denied the shooting at Morag, they admitted there was an exchange of fire by Tal Essultan.
The army said it did not know if the 16-year-old had been hit.
A Palestinian with heart problems died overnight at an Israeli checkpoint near Rafah as he was trying to reach a hospital after being kept waiting by soldiers, other Palestinian hospital officials said.
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