Around the World

Steps taken to end Mideast violence

JERUSALEM -- Israelis and Palestinians took their first, halting steps toward ending nearly three weeks of violence yesterday. Despite persistent clashes, both sides moved to carry out a U.S.-brokered agreement reached yesterday at an emergency summit conference in Egypt.

Scattered street confrontations and exchanges of gunfire flared in several West Bank towns, injuring more than 30 Palestinians, and a roadside bomb exploded near a passing Israeli convoy in the southern Gaza Strip.

As they had been prodded to do Monday and yesterday by President Clinton in Egypt, Palestinian leaders affirmed in a statement that they will work for calm and refrain from instigating violence. A leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, said Palestinian police also rearrested two dozen activists who left prison during the worst of the clashes, responding to a key Israeli demand at the summit.

Prime Minister Ehud Barak's government, for its part, ordered Israeli troops to do their utmost to avoid casualties.

More concretely, Israeli authorities reopened the airport in Gaza and international border crossings, and lifted the blockade on travel among the West Bank's seven major cities, which had halted much commerce for the area's nearly 2 million Palestinians.

Senior security officials from both sides met in an attempt to draft plans for controlling the chaos that has racked Gaza and the West Bank Sept. 29. Israel said it expects a 48-hour countdown to a complete cease-fire by Friday afternoon, beginning Wednesday evening at the conclusion of a conference of Israeli, Palestinian and American security officials.

"Within the next 48 hours we expect a cease-fire, a cessation of hostilities, all kinds of hostilities," said Nachman Shai, an Israeli spokesman. "There is a slight decrease (in violence) but not ... total tranquility."

Some Palestinian militiamen and street activists seemed to be resisting the leadership's attempts to ease tensions. But after 20 days of the worst sustained violence in the Middle East in years, the region seemed suspended between conflict and peace, and it was uncertain which would prevail. Many Palestinians warned that the uprising has gained its own momentum and will not be easily snuffed out. Israeli officials, for their part, said they were drafting plans for a unilateral physical "separation" from the Palestinians.

Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority asserted in its statement that it has "issued strict orders to all Palestinians involved to follow through on the implementation" of the agreement crafted by Clinton, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and other leaders at the two-day summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik.

Still, any optimism for an end to the violence and bloodshed was tempered by the intense emotions that have convulsed Palestinian and Israeli society this month. Those emotions were reflected in the continued fighting Wednesday and by fiery statements by Palestinian street leaders, who vowed to continue the fight regardless of orders to the contrary, and Israeli officials, who spoke of simply closing off the borders with Palestinian areas if peace negotiations cannot be revived.

U.S. officer ruled too sick for trial

MOSCOW - Opening the espionage trial against U.S. businessman Edmond Pope, a Moscow judge agreed yesterday to an independent medical examination to determine whether the American is healthy enough to remain in prison.

Russia's Federal Security Service arrested Pope, a retired U.S. Navy officer from State College, Pa., in April on charges that he tried to buy plans for a high-speed Russian torpedo. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

The 54-year-old Pope - who has been treated for a rare form of bone cancer - says he's innocent. The United States has called repeatedly for his release from Moscow's Lefortovo prison, where he has been held for six months.

U.S. officials have warned that the case could discourage American investment in Russia. Russian officials have responded by saying American criticism amounts to meddling in Russia's legal system.

Pope's lawyer, Pavel Astakhov, told reporters at the Moscow city court that he did not see the 26-page indictment until yesterday, and that Pope had not been permitted to study it closely because it was based on classified documents.

The judge, Nina Barkina, is to read the indictment at the next session, tomorrow.

Barkina ordered the defense to submit by tomorrow the names of doctors they want to examine Pope.

Astakhov said he would insist on an American doctor - a request that has been denied.

"Otherwise, it will be another farce, another fiction," Astakhov said. He suggested that prison doctors who have said Pope is healthy have ignored the cancer concern.

Astakhov also demanded a new translator, saying the one at the hearing might be biased because he is from the Federal Security Service, the agency that has lodged the charges against Pope. He said

Pope might refuse to testify because of the translator.

The lawyer said Pope doubted the accuracy of the translation of the indictment, which he was permitted to see three times - once when he signed it and on two other occasions when he was allowed to read it for an hour.