TELAVIV (voa) – Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres says he will meet Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat sometime next week somewhere in the Middle East to discuss an Israeli-Palestinian truce. Mr. Peres made the announcement Thursday as he arrived in Italy for talks with Foreign Minister Renato Ruggiere. He said two other meetings with Mr. Arafat would take place soon thereafter.
However, a Palestinian official said no date, time or meeting place has been set. Palestinian negotiators have said they want Mr. Peres to approach the talks with a mandate to negotiate.
Earlier Thursday, Palestinian gunmen ambushed an Israeli soldier and seriously wounded another near the West Bank town of Tulkarm where hours earlier Israeli helicopter missiles targeted a Palestinian militia leader but killed two Palestinian militants instead.
The intended target, Raed al-Karmi, escaped with light injuries. The Israeli army says Karmi has been involved in ambushes that killed at least six Israelis during the current Palestinian uprising. In recent months, Israel has targeted and killed dozens of Palestinians it says were involved in attacks.
Palestinian cabinet minister Nabil Shaath called the Israeli missile strike “murder in cold blood.”
A U.S. State Department spokesman criticized the Israeli raid, saying such attacks hinder efforts to establish direct dialogue.
The official says Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke separately Wednesday with Mr. Peres and Mr. Arafat about a possible meeting between the two, offering advice on how to make it productive.
Meanwhile, Egyptian officials say a top political advisor to President Hosni Mubarak recently met secretly with Mr. Peres to facilitate talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.
European foreign ministers and the European Union’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana have also been involved in trying to arrange a Peres-Arafat meeting in hopes of helping to end nearly a year of violence.
