The Palestinian Central Council yesterday delayed a planned declaration of an independent Palestinian state by at least two months to allow more time for a peace agreement to be reached with Israel.
The 129-member council said after a two-day meeting it would reconvene by November 15th to consider when to declare the state, creating a breathing space to seek a deal with Israel to end 52 years of conflict.
It said final preparations for statehood should be completed by November 15th. That is the anniversary of a declaration of statehood which Mr Yasser Arafat, now the Palestinian president, made from exile in Algiers in 1988.
"The PCC has decided from this day to take steps, sovereignty steps, by November 15th," said Mr Ahmed Abdel Rahman, a senior aide to Mr Arafat.
The council reiterated the Palestinian demand that the object of negotiations should be implementation of UN Resolution 242 calling for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank and a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. It also called upon Israel to carry out the pending provisions of the Oslo Accords.
A clear majority of the 100 members at the meeting in Mr Arafat's headquarters in Gaza accepted his recommendation to delay the proclamation. He told the council, the PLO's mini-parliament, President Clinton had asked him to defer the proclamation for another four to five weeks.
During this time Mr Arafat said the Palestinians and Israel would engage in intensive negotiations with the object of securing the agreement on a permanent settlement.
Peter Hirschberg reports from Jerusalem:
The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, yesterday described the Palestinian decision as a "positive step," but he nevertheless remained pessimistic about a possible breakthrough in the stalled talks.
The decision did not come as a surprise to Israeli leaders, in the wake of growing international pressure in recent weeks on Mr Arafat not to go ahead with a unilateral declaration of statehood on September 13th.
Despite Mr Arafat's tour of world capitals in the weeks after the failed US-sponsored Camp David summit in July, he failed to garner the support of international leaders, who warned him that a unilateral declaration of independence would precipitate a violent confrontation with Israel. Referring to yesterday's decision to delay statehood, Mr Gadi Baltiansky, a spokesman for Mr Barak, said: "We believe it is a result of the position of the international community which opposes unilateral steps that can only harm the peace process."
Israeli commentators suggested yesterday the decision to postpone a declaration of statehood - at least until after the US presidential elections - was a sign that the Palestinians, for now, preferred a negotiated solution with Israel.
But Mr Barak played down Palestinian declarations that talks between the two sides would resume shortly in the region.
"Contacts will be continued", Mr Barak said. "But I don't know if negotiations is the proper name for this. We have to exploit fully the limited time we have ahead of us."