DATE=10/02/00
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=ALBRIGHT / FRANCE / MIDEAST (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-267349
BYLINE=PAUL MILLER
DATELINE=PARIS
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: U-S Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who is in Paris, has joined French President Jacques Chirac in criticizing Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon for going to a Jerusalem holy site, sacred to both Muslims and Jews. Palestinian officials accuse Mr. Sharon of triggering what is now 5 days of rioting in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel. Paul Miller reports from Paris that France and the United States are looking for ways to end the clashes between Israelis and Palestinians.
TEXT: Secretary of State Albright described Mr. Sharon's visit Thursday to what Jews call the Temple Mount and Muslims the Haram Sharif as counterproductive. President Chirac of France went further, calling Mr. Sharon's action a deliberate provocation that had produced a predictable conflagration.
Secretary Albright said that President Clinton had urged Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to find out how the violence had started and end it. Secretary Albright and the French president both called for an end to the fighting.
The secretary of state said she would not be going to the Middle East as part of any peace making.
Secretary Albright was in Paris for a meeting with European Union officials on relations between the United States and the European community.
But they have found more urgent issues to discuss: the situation in the Middle East and the political crisis in Yugoslavia. They are looking for ways to get Russian help in persuading President Slobodan Milosevic, apparently defeated in recent elections, to step down. (SIGNED)
NEB/PM/GE/KBK
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