Israel Completes Handover of Tulkarm in West Bank

RAMALLAH, 23 March 2005 — Marking the second town to be given to Palestinian control, Israel completed its handover of Tulkarm yesterday, unlocking a gate and allowing traffic to flow freely to the rest of the West Bank for the first time in three years.

The Israeli pullback from Tulkarm, days after Palestinians regained the West Bank town of Jericho, was a gesture to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who won a deal with militants last week to extend a de facto truce.

On the Israeli political front, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was expected to cross a key hurdle for a final vote on the state budget that he must push through Parliament or face an election that would threaten his Gaza pullout plan.

Surrounded by television cameras, Israeli and Palestinian commanders stood before a yellow metal gate on the eastern outskirts of Tulkarm and shook hands to seal a handover that began on Monday night with deployment of Palestinian police.

Israeli troops had maintained the checkpoint outside Tulkarm, a city of 50,000 people near the West Bank border with Israel, during much of a 4-1/2-year-old Palestinian uprising.

Israel had promised on the eve of a Feb. 8 peace summit to transfer security responsibility for five West Bank cities and towns, but the process was delayed by disputes over security and a bombing at a Tel Aviv nightclub last month.

The deal calls for Palestinian security forces to keep militants in check. Israel, in return, has agreed to end army raids and ease restrictions on movement to and from the town.

Israel had withdrawn from Palestinian cities in the West Bank under a 1993 interim peace accord. But its troops surrounded many of them anew following a series of Palestinian attacks against Israelis at the height of the uprising.

— With input from agencies