RAMALLAH, West Bank, 16 November 2003 — Egypt’s intelligence chief, the main broker of a truce by Palestinian militants that collapsed in August, will return to the West Bank next week, President Yasser Arafat said yesterday. News of Omar Suleiman’s renewed role comes as hopes grow for a meeting between Israelis and the Palestinian Authority on a US-backed “road map” — for which a new truce is widely seen as crucial.
“He is coming with many ideas,” Arafat told reporters at his battered headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah during low-key ceremonies to mark the 15th anniversary of a Palestinian declaration of independence.
Widely respected by Palestinian factions, Suleiman helped broker a truce by militants in June. It held for two months before collapsing under a slew of violence. Arafat said Suleiman would be back tomorrow, but it was not immediately clear if he would meet the militant groups.
The Islamic group Hamas said on Friday it was ready for talks with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei on suspending hostilities. Qorei wants a cease-fire with Israel rather than a one-sided truce. The last truce broke down when Israel killed a Hamas official in a missile strike two days after a suicide bombing killed 23 people on a bus in Jerusalem.
The violence and the resignation of Qorei’s predecessor in September put the road map on hold, but the Palestinian premier and Israeli leader Ariel Sharon plan to meet soon in a bid to revive it.
Neither side, though, seems in a rush to hold talks without ensuring that they can claim progress toward peace afterward.
