JERUSALEM, 2 December 2004 — Egypt and Israel were close to agreement yesterday on a deal to allow hundreds of additional Egyptian soldiers to patrol the border with the Gaza Strip ahead of an Israeli pullout of the territory.

The understanding would fly in the face of the current peace treaty between the two countries but highlights a mutual desire to ensure that Palestinian militant groups do not step into any subsequent vacuum after the planned withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers next year.

Flanked by his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Abul Gheit, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said they were close to “an agreement that allows for the deployment of additional Egyptian forces on the Egyptian side of the border, despite the fact that the peace agreements don’t allow this.”

Under the terms of the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, only Egyptian policemen are allowed to be deployed along the border but sources said that Egypt has now offered to send around 750 soldiers to the area.

Israel has pushed for Egypt to halt the cross-border smuggling of weapons by Palestinian militants and appears to acknowledge that a greater military presence is needed to institute a concerted crackdown.

Cairo has offered to train Palestinian security forces to help them maintain order in the volatile Gaza region but Abul Gheit stressed that there were no plans to place Egyptian troops or police inside the territory.

Abul Gheit, who was accompanied on his visit by intelligence services chief Omar Suleiman, also held brief talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

“I am sure that their visit will result in a strengthening of ties between Israel and Egypt, and will aid in advancing the regional peace process,” the prime minister said after the talks.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s spokesman had said on Tuesday that Abul Gheit would also raise a recent offer by Syrian President Bashar Assad to resume peace negotiations with Israel.

Abul Gheit said that the topic had not featured in his conversations but he did urge Israel to respond positively.

“I did not convey any message and I did not review the Syrian issue but Syria is working for negotiations on the basis of land for peace and a resolution,” said Abul Gheit.

Syria Wants to Restart Talks With

Israel From Where It Ended

Meanwhile, Syria’s president has called for peace talks with Israel to resume where they collapsed almost five years ago, an offer being pushed by Egypt yesterday that the Jewish state has so far rebuffed.

“The negotiations should resume at the point where they broke off in January 2000,” Assad told Lebanese President Emile Lahoud in a telephone conversation, Syria’s official SANA news agency said.

Assad met Mubarak Tuesday for the first time since floating his peace proposition, after which a spokesman said Cairo would press Israel to accept the offer that has so far been dismissed as propaganda.

Peace talks floundered over the fate of the strategic Golan Heights plateau, which the Jewish state occupied in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed.

On Tuesday, SANA quoted an official as confirming that Damascus wanted to “continue talks taking into account what has been achieved... including the Rabin offer”.

Syria has said Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995, offered a complete return of the Golan in exchange for a normalization in relations with Damascus.

Its apparently unconditional readiness to resume peace talks — which UN Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen made public last week — comes as Israel is gearing up for a full evacuation of the Gaza Strip next year.