[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 51 (Monday, December 21, 1998)]
[Pages 2492-2494]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Following Trilateral Discussions and an Exchange With Reporters 
at Erez Crossing, Israel

December 15, 1998

    Good morning, everybody. I just had a very good meeting, a very 
frank meeting, with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Chairman Arafat. First, 
everyone agrees that yesterday's convening of all the Palestinian groups 
and the vote by the Palestinian National Council and the others to fully 
and forever reject the conflict with Israel and commit to a path to 
peace and cooperation was a truly historic day.
    And what we focused on in our meeting is how to follow up on that, 
where do we go from here, how can we vigorously implement the process 
that we agreed to at Wye. And I'd like to just--I have a few notes here 
from the meeting--I'd like to go over them with you.
    The first thing that we agreed to do was to energize the permanent 
status talks. Keep in mind, the purpose of the Wye agreement was to 
resolve the matters that had to be resolved so we could get into 
permanent status talks and try to get back as close as possible to the 
timetable set out in 1993.
    Secondly, we agreed to vigorously pursue the security issue through 
the appropriate committee. There is, I think, no space between the two 
sides in their understanding that maintaining security cooperation and 
minimizing security problems is the precondition to making all the rest 
of this work. It's what made Wye possible.
    Thirdly, the prisoner issue, as you know, is a difficult one, but an 
informal channel has been agreed to for dealing with that, and it was 
agreed to--referred all the questions to that channel and to pursue that 
accordingly.
    Fourthly, there is a so-called steering committee which is basically 
a clearinghouse for

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a lot of the other specific issues agreed to at Wye, questions of law 
enforcement, of weapons handling, of all the specifics there. They are 
going to meet today, and I anticipate that there will be agreement at 
the end of the day, at the end of this meeting, that a lot of the 
requirements of Wye for this next phase have, in fact, been met.
    Then there are some other issues that I would like to mention, all 
of which we agreed to establish to deal with through established 
committee procedures: Education--I talked about this in my speech in 
Gaza yesterday, the importance of teaching children that a commitment 
has been made by these two people to be partners and to share this land 
together. It's a very important issue to the Israelis and one I think 
that the Palestinians recognize. Second, the economic committee, which 
is very important. And thirdly, one big issue that has been agreed to 
but the details haven't been worked out is the whole question of safe 
passage. And there is a committee on safe passage, and I expect it to 
meet if not today, then very shortly to continue to push forward on 
that.
    So the message of this trip is that yesterday was a historic day. It 
was a very important day for both peoples. Again, I want to compliment 
and applaud Chairman Arafat and all the others who were at that meeting 
who made the decision, clear, public, and unambiguous, that we now have 
to decide practical means to go forward, and I think we are well on the 
way to doing that. So I have achieved what I came here to achieve, and I 
expect the Secretary of State to be back here in several weeks, and 
we'll just keep at it.

Israeli Troop Redeployment

    Q. Mr. President, will the redeployment that is scheduled for Friday 
go ahead?
    The President. Well, I think the proper way to answer that is that 
the Israeli Government in my meeting reaffirmed its commitment to the 
Wye process. And so we have to resolve a number of issues in order for 
the redeployment to go forward. I think it would be unfortunate if we 
got too far behind schedule, and I hope we can keep pretty much to the 
schedule that's there. But obviously, that remains to be worked out 
here.
    We believe in keeping to these schedules as much as possible, and we 
worked very hard to put all this back on track here. I do think that we 
are back on track. We're going to see this through, and I feel good 
about where we are now.
    Q. This clearinghouse you're speaking about----

Trilateral Meeting

    Q. Are they talking again?
    The President. Oh, yes, yes. We sat there for however long, an hour 
and 25 minutes today, with all the parties in the room, including the 
major members of each side's team, as well as the leaders, and everybody 
had their say. And there was some--we got beyond people stating their 
own positions to actual conversation, and I'm quite hopeful. I think the 
proof is always in what happens tomorrow, not what happens today, but I 
think at least we've got a process set up and we can go forward.

Middle East Peace Process and Domestic Political Problems

    Q. Mr. President, have you been able to insulate the peace process 
from the domestic political problems affecting you and the Prime 
Minister?
    The President. Oh, absolutely.
    Q. How so?
    The President. You show up for work every day. It's not a 
complicated thing.

Clearinghouses

    Q. These clearinghouses, are these to clear those obstacles that 
stand in the way of Netanyahu going through with the next phase of the 
withdrawal? Is this to satisfy him that these various issues like 
unilateral declarations are being resolved so he can go ahead? I don't 
understand the clearinghouse.
    The President. No, no. What I am saying is--no, there is a steering 
committee that we had set up at Wye that is supposed to deal with things 
like----
    Q. Well, yes, prisoners, for instance.
    The President. No, no, that's different. It's supposed to deal with 
things like--the steering committee deals with things like the weapons 
confiscation and destruction issue, the size of the police forces, all 
those specific

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issues that were set up at Wye not being dealt with in the security 
committee, not being dealt with in the informal channel on prisoners, 
not being dealt with in some other way.
    And so what I would say, as I think you will get a report before the 
end of the day here that these folks have gotten together, the reports 
have been made, and I think a determination will be made that a number 
of the requirements of the Wye agreement have been met so that we can go 
forward. But this is a complicated matter, obviously, and I hope we can 
stay as close to the schedule as possible.

Prime Minister Netanyahu's Preconditions

    Q. He set preconditions for going in. His latest one was unilateral 
declarations of statehood. He said that yesterday. Before that, it was 
the covenant. You got the covenant taken care of. What I am trying to 
determine is whether his preconditions have been swept away.
    The President. Well, the meeting we did yesterday was part of the 
Wye agreement. The other question is one that I think both sides should 
observe, which is, it is okay to advocate how you want this to come out. 
That's okay. Neither side should try to stop the other from saying what 
their vision of the future is. That would be a terrible mistake. But it 
is not okay to imply that we're not going to resolve all the matters 
that were listed in the Oslo agreement for negotiations by negotiations. 
That is what we've got to do, and that's where I think the line ought to 
be drawn and the balance ought to be struck. If we stick with that, you 
know, we'll have fits and starts; it will be hard parts, but we'll get 
through this. We'll get through this just fine, and it will come out 
where it ought to.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 10:35 a.m. in the Matak Headquarters. In 
his remarks, he referred to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of Israel; 
and Chairman Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Authority. A tape was not 
available for verification of the content of these remarks.