PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres will meet at their border on Saturday night in a last-ditch effort to meet a July 1 deadline for an accord on expanding Palestinian rule.
Arafat's spokesman Marwan Kanafani said on Friday: "Tomorrow evening President Yasser Arafat is going to meet the Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres at Erez Checkpoint in order to exchange their point of views."Earlier Peres told Israeli army radio: "We're working at full speed to try to finish up those points still in dispute."
He declined to say what sort of agreement might be achieved, adding that it might take up to a month to clinch a complete accord on expanding Palestinian self-rule beyond Gaza and Jericho to other parts of the West Bank.
"I don't want to prophesy. I admit there is a whole lot more work. But it's possible we could reach a basic understanding on a few matters," Peres said.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Korei, known as Abu Alaa, was to meet Israel's foreign ministry director-general Uri Savir in Jerusalem to try to sew up an agreement by Friday evening, Palestinian sources said.
Asked after Friday prayers in Gaza whether he would meet Peres, Arafat said: "It depends on what happens today, if they accept what we offered them."
The Israeli ministers of police and justice meanwhile met senior members of the Palestinian Authority for talks on the release of some of the 5,000 Israeli-held prisoners as part of the next phase.
Israel and the PLO had set July 1 as a target date for reaching an agreement on expansion of Palestinian self-rule, now confined to the Gaza Strip and Jericho, to other parts of the West Bank.
Under a 1993 peace accord with the PLO, Israel agreed to redeploy its troops away from West Bank Palestinian areas and elections. Both are a year behind schedule.
On Thursday, Peres said the violence-plagued city of Hebron remained an obstacle to an army pullout.