JERUSALEM, 27 January 2005 — Israel and the Palestinians lifted a nearly two-year freeze in high-level diplomatic contacts yesterday and agreed to prepare for a first summit between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Mahmoud Abbas.
The dialogue, to resume next week to decide a summit agenda, aims to build on a lull in Palestinian militant attacks secured by Abbas since his Jan. 9 election as Yasser Arafat’s successor on a platform to end bloodshed, raging since 2000, and talk peace.
Steps to cement a de facto cease-fire accelerated on the ground as Palestinian security men began deploying in south Gaza to stamp out lingering isolated violence by militants. Calm has prevailed in north Gaza since a similar deployment last week.
High-level diplomacy had been shelved since June 2003 when Abbas, briefly prime minister under Arafat, Sharon and US President George W. Bush met to launch a “road map” peace plan that was quickly sidelined by more fighting on the ground.
Israel boycotted Arafat in the final years before his death, branding him an “arch-terrorist”, which he denied, but welcomed Abbas’s rise on a pledge of quiet to enable road map talks on Palestinian statehood in Israeli-occupied territories.
“There will be a meeting between Sharon and Abbas in the near future. Senior aides on both sides will be putting together an agenda for the summit at the next talks,” a confidant of Sharon’s said.
“Today’s meeting was conducted in a good and constructive atmosphere,” said Palestinian Negotiations Minister Saeb Erekat. “We decided to meet next week to continue preparations for the summit. No date has been set yet for the summit.”
Heading Sharon’s team at the talks was Dov Weisglass, his powerful chief diplomatic adviser who is also his point man for relations with Washington on Middle East conflict issues.
Sources close to Sharon said he wanted the summit to deal only with security matters, namely coordinating Israel’s planned pullout from Gaza later this year, disarming militants and stopping alleged incitement to violence in Palestinian culture.
Aides to Abbas said he wanted to address both security issues, including an Israeli pledge to halt anti-militant raids and free thousands of jailed militants to help him keep violence in check, and political steps to implement Bush’s road map.
But although Israel has been impressed by Abbas’s efforts to restore calm and raised the prospect of pulling back from West Bank cities soon if the quiet endures, it has been less keen than Palestinians to embark on road map negotiations.
While planning to evacuate Gaza this summer, Israel has gone on building settlements it vows never to yield in the West Bank, a larger territory also captured in the 1967 Middle East war and central to the Palestinian goal of a viable state.
“These new diplomatic contacts will not be serious until we start discussing permanent-status solutions to the conflict,” Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei said.
Senior US diplomat William Burns arrived later in the day to resume exploring ways of getting back onto the road map, which envisages a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip co-existing with a secure Israel.
Burns said in Cairo yesterday that Washington wants Syria and others in the Middle East to support peace moves between Palestinians and Israelis, which would help move the region closer to a comprehensive deal.
“Certainly, we’ve encouraged in recent conversations with the Syrian government ... the Syrians to support this moment of opportunity before Palestinians and Israelis,” Burns told reporters in the Egyptian capital.
Burns, who met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, was in Cairo on the first stop of a regional tour to help revive peace moves between Palestinians and Israelis amid a reduction in violence between the two sides.
Mubarak told Burns it was important Israel halt construction of a barrier it is building deep inside the West Bank as a sign of goodwill towards the Palestinians, presidential spokesman Soleimand Awad said.
Mubarak also said Israel could ease the lives of Palestinians by lifting checkpoints and looking into the release of more Palestinian prisoners, Awad said.
Sharon restored diplomatic contacts with the Palestinians in recognition of Abbas’s success over the past week in stilling militant violence in the Gaza Strip in a series of talks with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah armed faction chiefs.
Vice Premier Shimon Peres said Israel could suspend its controversial policy of tracking and killing militant leaders if the calm held. But Sharon’s government has refused Abbas’s demand that it guarantee a halt to all military action.
Abbas, 69, a former member of Arafat’s inner circle who broke with his old boss over the use of violence, has won a tacit deal from militants to observe quiet for at least a month. Israel has said it will answer quiet with quiet, but has continued raids in the West Bank. But yesterday, undercover troops shot dead a Fatah militant when he tried to flee arrest, the army said.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of Abbas’s Fatah movement, threatened to scrap a de facto cease-fire if the Israeli army did not halt raids against their members within 24 hours.
In southern Gaza, a 3-year-old Palestinian girl died after soldiers guarding a settlement fired into the town of Deir Al-Balah, witnesses said. Military sources said soldiers opened fire after militants launched mortar bombs or rockets at Israeli targets. It was not immediately clear if these were the shots that killed the girl.
Hours later, the first of 2,000 Palestinian security police moved into southern areas where militants have often attacked Israeli settlers and soldiers. The deployment was to be completed within 24 hours.
Dozens of settlers at the Neve Dekalim enclave scuffled with Israeli police at the site where Israeli and Palestinian officers met, their anger at a planned Gaza pullout intensified by the presence of armed Palestinians near their homes.
