By
The Associated Press
JERUSALEM - Ariel Sharon, the leading contender in Israel's race for prime minister, declared in an interview published yesterday that he considers the Israeli-Palestinian accords of recent years null and void.
He accused Palestinians of killing the current peacemaking effort in more than 100 days of violence.
Meanwhile, a last-ditch mediation drive was thrown into doubt, with President Clinton's envoy postponing a Mideast trip and a top Palestinian negotiator denouncing Israel's leaders as war criminals.
Senior Israeli and Palestinian officials met late yesterday to discuss security matters, the second high-level meeting in as many days. The Israeli team, with army commanders and security officials, was headed by Cabinet minister Amnon Lipkin-Shahak. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat led a Palestinian team of security chiefs.
In the interview with Kfar Habad, an ultra-Orthodox weekly, Sharon indicated he would not consider himself bound by the landmark interim peace accords signed after secret talks in Oslo, Norway in 1993. The interim accords have guided peacemaking ever since.
"The Oslo agreement exists no more - period," Sharon was quoted as saying. The interview, to be published in the magazine this week, was widely excerpted in Israeli newspapers yesterday.
Sharon holds a double-digit lead in the polls over Prime Minister Ehud Barak ahead of the Feb. 6 election. Sharon formally kicked off his campaign Wednesday night with a rally in Jerusalem.
Sharon's campaign has sought to portray him as a moderate, distancing him from his long history of operations against the Palestinians and a disastrous invasion of Lebanon in 1982 that led to his ouster as defense minister. A preview of his television campaign ads
Yesterday showed a grandfatherly Sharon, 72, holding a small child and walking through pastoral scenery.
At the rally, he said that as premier he would not negotiate with the Palestinians before the violence subsides. But he added: "There is no peace without concessions. The peace we will reach will be based on a compromise."
In the Kfar Habad interview, Sharon was quoted as saying that merely allowing the Palestinians to keep the areas Israel ceded to date was a "painful concession" because "all those places are the birthplace of the Jewish people."
He did not advocate retaking areas now under Palestinian control - about 40 percent of the West Bank and two-thirds of Gaza. But he indicated that the Palestinians would get no more territory from him if he is elected.
He also promised not to give up control of any of Jerusalem - including a key disputed holy site, where the Al Aqsa Mosque is built atop the ruins of the ancient Jewish Temples - and said Israel must retain all its settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for security reasons.
The current round of unrest erupted after Sharon's Sept. 28 trip to the holy site. Since then, 364 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed.
The Palestinians want to create a state in all of the West Bank and Gaza, with sovereignty over the Arab section of Jerusalem and the Al Aqsa compound. They describe the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza as illegal encroachment on their land and demand their removal.
Barak has offered the Palestinians a state in more than 90 percent of the West Bank and Gaza. Clinton's peace proposal also would give the Palestinians sovereignty over east Jerusalem and the holy site in exchange for Palestinians dropping their claim that millions of refugees and their families have the right to return to homes in what is now Israel.
Barak has worked for an agreement with the Palestinians before he faces the voters. But all sides now doubt a peace deal can be reached before Clinton's term ends Jan. 20.
U.S. mediator Dennis Ross postponed a trip, set for tomorrow, meant to try to narrow the gaps between the sides. Larry Schwartz, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, said Clinton held up the mission to see whether the level of violence can be reduced.
Also Wednesday, chief Palestinian negotiator Yasser Abed Rabbo demanded that Barak and his Cabinet be prosecuted for approving the assassination of Palestinians figures.
Palestinians say more than a dozen leading activists have been killed by Israeli special forces. Israel has acknowledged targeting Palestinians who plan attacks against Israelis but has not admitted involvement in specific cases.
