Albright meets Arafat, Levy

The Palestinian and Israeli track of the Middle East peace process "is at the core of the issues to achieve a comprehensive peace, and we want to see as much work and dedication given to this as possible," US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said today. She announced Today that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has accepted President Clinton's invitation to come to Washington June 14 to try to accelerate progress toward reaching an agreement on permanent status issues in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Negotiations will begin "there, in the region at the beginning of next week," Albright said. She added that she is pleased that Arafat "is going to be able to be in Washington along with the negotiators, something that [Israel's] Prime Minister Barak has agreed also -- to have the negotiators there," a US statement said.