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Arafat, Mubarak discuss snags in peace talks

CAIRO: Palestinian President Yasser Arafat arrived in Cairo on Thursday to consult Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on obstacles in Middle East peacemaking.

"The two leaders will discuss the peace process and European and international moves to contain the deterioration in peacemaking," Palestinian ambassador Zuhdi al-Kudra said.

He told Reuters that Mubarak, who has often sought to ease sticking points in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, would brief Arafat on a telephone conversation he had with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak late on Wednesday.

Israel and the Palestinians had aimed to reach a draft final peace agreement by February 13, but the talks are frozen over the key issue of West Bank land.

Arafat will tell Mubarak about his recent visit to Italy and an agreement he signed with Pope John Paul, Kudra said.

"The agreement recognises the Palestinian Authority's legitimacy and sovereignty over freed Palestinian lands and the Palestinian people's right to self-determination and the necessity to find a fair solution to the issue of Jerusalem.

"We call on Israel to read the Vatican's message so as to know that the world's Catholic Church leadership stands now on the side of the Palestinian right," Kudra said.

The agreement, signed on Monday, called for an internationally guaranteed special statute for Jerusalem, a measure Israel has long rejected.

Returning to the Gaza Strip from Europe after signing the accord in Rome, Arafat said: "This is a very important and historic agreement. It is important to the Palestinian people and to peace in the region."

The agreement describes Israeli "unilateral decisions" over East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as their future capital, as "morally and legally unacceptable", in an apparent reference to Israeli settlement policy and rule over the city.

Israel has accused the Vatican of interfering in the currently stalled peace talks with the Palestinians by urging Israel not to take unilateral decisions affecting Jerusalem. The holy city's future is to be determined in a peace treaty.

The Israeli foreign ministry summoned Papal envoy Monsignor Petro Sambi on Wednesday to protest at references to Jerusalem in the agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and annexed it as part of its "united and eternal capital" in a move rejected by the international community and the Vatican.-Reuters