JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak saw off a potential challenger at home as United States-mediated peace talks with the Palestinians in Washington made progress towards a framework for a final agreement.
Nobel laureate Shimon Peres, Israel's leading dove, bowed out of the race for Prime Minister after failing to win the support of the Meretz party, leaving Barak to face opposition Likud party chief Ariel Sharon in the February 6 election.
In Washington, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, staying on longer than expected and battling against the clock, worked in seclusion at a US Air Force base yesterday on ideas for a final peace settlement.
US Middle East envoy Dennis Ross and his deputy, Aaron Miller, met the delegations both separately and together, against a background of heightened expectations.
Diplomatic sources said Israel had substantially improved its offer to the Palestinians on the extent of an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and on Palestinian sovereignty over Arab East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in 1967.
But an Israeli official said his country's flexibility depended on Palestinian flexibility, especially on the crucial question of whether Palestinian refugees could return to Israel.
He added that the Palestinian negotiators might want to exaggerate the extent of Israeli concessions to show that they had gained something from the uprising of the past three months, in which more than 330 people have died.
- REUTERS
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