Peace Proposal

President Obama and other U.S. officials have explored whether the administration should offer its own Middle East peace proposal to break the logjam between Palestinians and Israelis, officials said Wednesday. At a time of growing frustration in the White House over the lack of a peace agreement, Obama and aides recently discussed whether the administration may need to turn to such an approach, officials said. Two weeks ago, Obama talked about Middle East peace efforts with a number of former senior U.S. officials in Democratic and Republican administrations meeting at the White House with Gen. James L. Jones, the national security advisor.

AREHA, Syria - Five times a day, for 15 years, the muezzin made the call to prayer from the mosque's minaret, which rose high above the roofs of the modest homes surrounding it. When soldiers, their tanks positioned throughout the city, asked him whether rebel fighters used the minaret, he told them, "I swear no one goes up there except for me. " But a few Sundays ago, when Areha was under near-constant bombardment, a shell slammed into...

A key moderate Catholic leader in Northern Ireland urged British Prime Minister John Major on Saturday to spell out parts of a British-Irish peace proposal, a move requested by the Irish Republican Army. John Hume, leader of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labor Party, said a review of the proposal would not constitute negotiations, which Major has refused.

President Obama and other U.S. officials have explored whether the administration should offer its own Middle East peace proposal to break the logjam between Palestinians and Israelis, officials said Wednesday. At a time of growing frustration in the White House over the lack of a peace agreement, Obama and aides recently discussed whether the administration may need to turn to such an approach, officials said. Two weeks ago, Obama talked about Middle East peace efforts with a number of former senior U.S. officials in Democratic and Republican administrations meeting at the White House with Gen. James L. Jones, the national security advisor.

African regional leaders endorsed a peace proposal for war-torn Somalia on Friday that was aimed at undermining the power of the warlords. During a one-day summit in neighboring Djibouti, the leaders of Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti embraced the plan introduced earlier this year by Djibouti President Ismael Omar Guelleh. The four nations, along with Eritrea and Uganda, make up the regional Internal-Governmental Authority on Development, or IGAD.

Bosnia's Muslim leaders recommended Thursday that their Parliament accept a peace plan demanded by the United States, Russia and Europe, increasing pressure on reluctant Serbs to follow suit. Ethnic Serbs, who have seized 70% of Bosnia in 27 months of war, would have to give up territory under the plan presented Wednesday in Geneva. It would leave Serbs 49% of Bosnia and give a Muslim-Croatian federation 51%.

Iranian and Soviet officials said Tuesday they are awaiting a "signal" from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that he is ready for peace before moving ahead with proposals to mediate a peaceful end to the Persian Gulf War. But Soviet diplomats said their experience thus far--a steadfast refusal by Hussein to consider any compromise--offers little encouragement for any negotiations soon.

A massive ground attack against Iraqi troops grew imminent Wednesday as time began to run out on Soviet efforts to mediate a peaceful withdrawal of Saddam Hussein's troops from Kuwait. Iraqi radio announced that Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz will travel to Moscow "soon" to deliver Hussein's response to Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's peace proposal. But allied officials dismissed such talk as a "desperate" attempt by Iraq to "buy time" to avert a total defeat.

In a blow to the fragile peace process in Northern Ireland, the outlawed Irish Republican Army on Wednesday rejected an Anglo-Irish outline for settlement terms, saying it was skewed in favor of pro-British Protestant parties. But the IRA statement did not appear to immediately threaten a tenuous cease-fire or signal withdrawal from peace talks by Sinn Fein, the IRA's political wing.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has formally repeated his opposition to any role for representatives from the United Nations in proposed talks between Israel and Arab governments along with Palestinian negotiators.

Now that the worldwide fanfare accompanying the so-called Geneva Accord has died down a bit, perhaps it's time to look at why most Israelis have failed to rally behind the unofficial plan's outline for how to achieve peace with the Palestinians. The biggest problem for Israelis is that what the document's authors claim it says and what it actually says are very different. Moreover, there are serious matters of credibility with the way the initiative was presented.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said key American allies reacted favorably to his first public appeal Thursday to NATO to take a direct role in Iraq's reconstruction. At a meeting of foreign ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Powell said the Western security alliance needed to consider "how it might do more to support peace and stability" in the war-torn country.

Despite the Bush administration's insistence that a U.S.-backed peace plan is not open to renegotiation, a deal struck to win Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's acceptance of the proposal virtually guarantees that Israel will be able to press for modifications on a range of important issues before the creation of a Palestinian state, U.S. and Israeli officials said Friday. After weeks of resisting American appeals, Sharon announced Friday that Israel is prepared to accept the "road map" to peace.

The Bush administration is debating whether to push for a provisional Palestinian state as an interim solution to break the deadlock in the Middle East peace process, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Wednesday. U.S. officials acknowledged that the idea is virtually certain to spark controversy among Israelis, Palestinians and the wider Arab world for a host of reasons. These include Israeli concerns that such a step would, in essence, reward Palestinian violence against the Jewish state.

Three days after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's ruling Likud Party voted to reject the establishment of a Palestinian state, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer on Wednesday unveiled his own peace package that would share Jerusalem with the Palestinians and grant them sovereignty over most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Calling on allies in Europe and the Arab world to help, the United States on Monday engaged in intense diplomacy with Israel and the Palestinians in a bid to reduce bloodshed and generate momentum for a peace proposal to be debated this week at an Arab League summit. The Bush administration quietly tried to win Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's approval for Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to attend the summit in Beirut, which begins Wednesday.

Honduran officials and Nicaraguan rebel leaders will meet in Washington this week to discuss a peace proposal that includes disarming the rebels, a Honduran Foreign Ministry spokesman said. Last month, the presidents of Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica worked out the peace proposal, in which they agreed to draft a plan by May 15 to disband the Contras, who oppose Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government. Most of the rebels fled to bases in neighboring Honduras after U.

Reagan's "peace" proposal for Nicaragua indicates once again his lack of understanding of the meaning of peace. During his first term in office, Reagan introduced a peacekeeping force into Lebanon. While this may have begun as a noble attempt to help control a tense situation in the Middle East, the fact is that it ended with U.S. ships lobbing shells at the coast of Lebanon. It was also during Reagan's first term that he renamed the MX missile the "Peacekeeper." This characterization is hardly accurate, since the MX is useful only in a preemptive mode, making it a very destabilizing and distinctly un peaceful weapon.

Israelis and Palestinians are locked in their deadliest battle in decades. No political initiative has graced the horizon for months. The fighting distracts and threatens to undermine Arab regimes throughout the region. Nearly everyone--Arab and Jew--is exhausted. Into such bleak circumstances floats a proposal by Saudi Arabia that is gaining astonishing momentum--even though it is vaguely worded, starkly simple and not particularly creative.

President Andres Pastrana rejected a last-ditch proposal to save Colombia's shattered peace process late Saturday, thrusting the country to the brink of an all-out civil war. Pastrana's decision means that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, have been given 48 hours, ending Monday, to leave the zone that they have made their de facto headquarters for the last three years.