Tel Aviv (dpa) – Israeli and Palestinian envoys had a confrontation about the makeup of their delegations during their last meeting in Jordan, an official said Wednesday. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat refused to enter the room where the talks were held Saturday, because the Israelis had unexpectedly brought along a security expert, said the official close to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee. Erekat therefore refused to hear the Israel position on security in the presence of the expert, because he was not an official member of the Israeli delegation and unauthorized to be there. “They tried to introduce a security expert and it was not part of the exploratory talks,” he told dpa on condition of anonymity. “We did not want to start any meeting with the presence of (people) who were not supposed to be in the meeting,” he said. The official said Israel had so far failed to submit its positions on the two negotiating issues of borders and security, despite an expectation to do so in the second round of the Jordan talks. The sides are scheduled to hold the fifth and final round of talks in Amman late Wednesday. An additional round planned for Monday – after Saturday's clash – did not take place. Wednesday's scheduled parley comes a day before expiry of a deadline set by the Quartet: the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia. The Palestinians have warned they will not continue the talks after the January 26 deadline if Israel continues to refuse to freeze settlement activity. The official said the Palestinians were “pessimistic” about the chance for the exploratory talks to continue. They were launched in early January in a last-minute bid to revive the peace process, before Palestinians step up their diplomatic campaign at the United Nations as an alternative to negotiations with Israel. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/eBjA4 Tags: Expert, Israel, Peace Talks, State Section: Latest News, Palestine
