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Mideast summit cancelled
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MIDEAST peacemaking lurched from hope to uncertainty yesterday as Egypt called off plans to host a summit that would have brought the Israeli and Palestinian leaders together for the first time in two months.
Israel early yesterday accepted an American-authored plan as the basis for further talks. But the Palestinians sharply criticized the proposals, effectively rejecting them, according to a senior Palestinian official.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had been due to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik later yesterday. But before dawn, Egypt announced without elaborating that the gathering was off.
Although the summit was scrapped, Arafat left the Gaza Strip for Cairo to meet with Mubarak. Israel at first left open the prospect of Barak going to Egypt on Thursday for a separate meeting with the Egyptian president, but later said he would not go.
Both sides spent all day on Wednesday in intensive talks among themselves that lasted into the night. They finished by staking out what appeared to be opposing positions on the American peace plan presented to Israeli and Palestinian delegations last week.(SD-Agencies)
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