JERUSALEM — In their first meeting in two months, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat cracked jokes and shared a meal in Barak's yard, but did not achieve anything concrete toward peace, officials on both sides said.
In their nighttime meeting that stretched into Tuesday morning, the two men avoided the specifics of the prickly issues they need to resolve for a peace treaty, and aides said the gaps remain wide.
A Palestinian official said the United States is working on a position paper, but would formally present it only if both sides appear prepared to accept it.
Barak's senior adviser, Danny Yatom, said the talks were general.
An Israeli military helicopter flew Arafat from the Gaza Strip to Barak's home in the town of Kochav Yair and back, a trip unimaginable a few years ago when Arafat was Israel's most hated enemy.
More recently, Barak and Arafat exchanged angry messages through the news media, blaming each other for the stalemate in the peace talks. They had not met since July, when a summit meeting with President Clinton at the Camp David presidential retreat failed to produce an agreement.
As they chatted in Barak's living room and on the lawn outside, Clinton called to urge them to move forward in the talks. They assured Clinton they will make every effort to reach an agreement, Barak's office said. After the meeting, negotiators from both sides left for talks in Washington.
"So far the peace process is still in a deadlock," Arafat adviser Nabil Aburdeneh said. Arafat granted his team "full authority" to discuss every detail in the talks, Aburdeneh said.
The leaders instructed negotiators to intensify their efforts to reach an agreement, Barak said. "We are at the start of a very intensive effort and, in a way, the last one in this round to try to reach a breakthrough," he said Tuesday.
The sides missed a Sept. 13 target date for finishing a peace treaty. They are trying to work out a deal to beat Israeli and American political clocks. Barak faces motions to topple his minority government when parliament reconvenes Oct. 30, and Clinton will be stepping down in January.
The United States is preparing a document summing up points of understanding reached at Camp David and since then, Palestinian International Cooperation Minister Nabil Shaath said Tuesday in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Clinton has seen two drafts of the paper, which will be discussed with the negotiators this week and may be presented formally next week — but only if the president is sure the sides will accept it, Shaath said.
Since the Camp David summit, negotiations have sputtered at a low level.
A dispute about sovereignty over holy places in Jerusalem's Old City scuttled the summit and remains the main obstacle. Both Israel and the Palestinians demand control of a hilltop where a mosque and a shrine, the third holiest site in Islam, were built on buried ruins of the biblical Jewish temples.
Both sides have hinted that they might modify their demand for full control but are still far apart about how to proceed.
Israeli news media report that Barak is considering a U.S. proposal to let the U.N. Security Council oversee the hill, known to Jews as the Temple Mount. The Palestinians have suggested turning over the site, which Muslims call Haram as-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary, to a group of Islamic nations.
But aides said Arafat's visit was not meant to solve the complex issues. Its purpose was to improve personal ties between the two at a difficult point in the peace talks.
"The meeting was held in a warm, open atmosphere that I believe will help us in efforts to examine the way to renew the negotiations with the Palestinians," Barak said.