Israeli - Palestinian security meeting

US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday speaking about the Israelis and Palestinians that "There has been, in fact, a trilateral security meeting last night, which we consider to be a very positive development."

He described the meeting as "extremely important and significant," adding "we think, that the parties have committed to that kind of cooperation in the dates ahead. So that's a very positive step as regard to getting a hold of the violence and terror, and taking the steps necessary to stop the violence."

Boucher said "Clearly, we continue to believe the burden of performance in the security area rests with Mr. Arafat, and we continue to reiterate that both sides, in cooperating on security, are able to achieve more."

Boucher said "we're very pleased to see that that meeting, the trilateral security discussions, took place last night with those kinds of developments. The Secretary will come back and check with his experts, talk to the people here who work on those issues, and he did say that he intended to be on the phone, or at least in contact with the parties, too."