JERUSALEM, 18 January 2006 — Israel’s interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said yesterday that he hoped to renew peace talks with the Palestinians after elections in March, but only if fighter groups are disarmed first.
Olmert’s comments on peacemaking prospects were his most detailed since he took over from Ariel Sharon and echoed the position set out by Israel’s incapacitated leader, who suffered a massive stroke on Jan. 4.
Opinion polls put Olmert, 60, well ahead to win the election on March 28 at the helm of the centrist Kadima party that Sharon founded, just weeks before his stroke, to campaign on a platform of ending conflict with the Palestinians. Olmert said he hoped for talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after both Israel’s election and a Jan. 25 Palestinian ballot, in which Abbas’ party faces a challenge from Hamas. “I hope that based on the results of their elections, and after that the results of our elections, I will be able to enter negotiations,” Olmert told reporters.
A Hamas spokesman said in response the group had no intent to disarm and was “committed to resistance against occupation.” Sharon always ruled out talks on Palestinian statehood before disarmament, meant to begin under a US-backed peace road map. Israel has not met its own commitment under the plan to freeze Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank.
“We want Mr. Olmert or whoever becomes prime minister to implement Israeli obligations,” said top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. “The Palestinian Authority is committed to implementing its obligations as well.”
Meanwhile, Israeli police arrested at least eight rightwing youths in the West Bank city of Hebron, following days of confrontations with security forces over Israel’s planned eviction of a small settler enclave in a Palestinian market.
