RAMALLAH, West Bank, 1 July 2003 — Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas will meet Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today to discuss a US-backed peace plan despite new violence, Abbas’s office said yesterday. “The prime minister will meet with Mr. Sharon on Tuesday to discuss the implementation of both sides’ commitments under the road map,” said a spokesman for Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen.
Sharon’s office declined comment but Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert confirmed a meeting was planned.
“We’ll sit at the meeting and hear what Abu Mazen has to say, what they (the Palestinians) have to say about the security parameters — how they plan to take responsibility for them and implement them in action,” he told Channel 1 television.
Meanwhile, six political factions falling under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said in a statement yesterday they would heed the call by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction “for a halt to all military actions for a period of six months.”
Four Palestinian groups on Sunday declared a cease-fire in the 33-month-old intifada, or uprising, but demanded that the Jewish state release all Palestinian prisoners.
Arab states have welcomed the cease-fire announcement as a step toward putting the Middle East peace process back on track, and urged Israel to meet the conditions laid down by the factions.
In Cairo, the 22-member Arab League said the truce would bolster Arab and international efforts to implement the US-backed “road map” that calls for the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.
In the West Bank, Palestinians shot dead a foreign worker yesterday.
