MIDEAST TALKS REOPEN IN CAIRO

* Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, arrived in Cairo yesterday at the start of a week of intensive diplomacy on disputes that have delayed Israel's promised withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank city of Jericho. Mr. Arafat met with Foreign Minister Amr Moussa and was expected to meet later with President Hosni Mubarak in preparation for talks between the PLO and Israel today.

Under the terms of the Sept. 13 Declaration of Priniciples, Israel was to have begun withdrawing from Gaza and Jericho on Dec. 13, but disputes on three issues forced the delay. The issues include control of border crossings between Egypt and Gaza and Jordan and Jericho, the size of the Jericho area, and the amount of land to be taken up by Israeli military installations to protect settlements in Gaza.

Talks, first in Cairo, then in Oslo, Norway, and Paris, hit the deadlock because of a disagreement over the entire concept of the five-year period of Palestinian ``self-rule.''

The Palestinians spoke openly of self-rule as the first step toward an independent state. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin has been determined to force the Palestinians to back down from that view.