Arafat and Peres to meet tomorrow
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres will meet tomorrow morning to begin plans for a formal ceasefire and a possible resumption of peace talks.
The meeting was due to go ahead last week, but it was blocked by Israeli leader Ariel Sharon because an informal truce had failed to halt Palestinian violence.
However, the United States is believed to have exerted pressure on the Israelis to endorse the meeting.
The US believes that a ceasefire in the Middle East is essential to its efforts to recruit Arab nations into its so-called "coalition against terrorism".
Mr Arafat and Mr Peres will meet tomorrow morning in Gaza International Airport.
It will be first of three meetings between the two men and the first official talks between both sides in months.
Israel and Palestine both declared an informal ceasefire last week and Mr Sharon said the talks could go ahead if the region remained calm for 48 hours.
However, Palestinian militants failed to honour the truce and killed two Israelis in separate drive-by shootings in the West Bank.
On the other hand, Israel killed 26 Palestinians while the world’s attention was focused on the United States following the September 11th attacks.
