JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sacked Israel’s top negotiator on Gaza truce talks for publicly criticizing his demand that Palestinians hand over a captured Israeli soldier before any deal is clinched, officials said yesterday.
The move threatens to roil the talks just weeks before Olmert is succeeded by the hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu, who wants Gaza’s Hamas rulers toppled and likely would take a tougher line in the Egyptian-brokered negotiations.
Reaching a truce has implications beyond cementing the informal Jan. 18 cease-fire that ended Israel’s war on Palestinians. Without it, there is little chance of advancing already troubled talks to reconcile feuding Palestinian factions.
Olmert abruptly announced last week that Israel would not reopen Gaza’s long-blockaded borders — the main Israeli concession in any truce — until Hamas-affiliated fighters freed Sgt. Gilad Shalit, captured in a June 2006 cross-border raid.
Amos Gilad, the sacked negotiator, opposed linking the truce deal with Shalit, and criticized Olmert’s strategy in an interview last week with Israel’s Maariv daily. After Gilad refused to apologize, Olmert gave him the boot, aides said.
“Due to the inappropriate public criticism leveled by Mr. Gilad, he cannot continue as the prime minister’s envoy to any political negotiations,” Olmert’s office said in a statement. Aides said talks would not be affected by Gilad’s dismissal.
A longtime adviser to the prime minister, Shalom Turgeman, will replace Gilad on the truce talks, Olmert aides said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, said Hamas should be part of a new government and honor international commitments in the peace process. Abbas said a new Cabinet including Hamas should continue the peace process on the basis of previous agreements such as “the existence of two states and no more building of settlements in Gaza.” Abbas spoke after meeting Czech President Vaclav Klaus in Prague.
With Netanyahu as the new premier of Israel, the Middle East peace process is likely to stall. To avoid that happening, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit Israel and the occupied West Bank from March 3.
Clinton will visit after attending an international conference in Egypt to help rebuild Gaza after the war in December and January, said senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. It will be Clinton’s first visit since she became President Barack Obama’s secretary of state.
Obama’s Middle East envoy, former US Sen. George Mitchell, is expected in the region this week and is due to hold talks with Abbas in Ramallah on Friday, Erekat said.
