RAMALLAH, West Bank, 25 May 2005 — The Palestinian Authority yesterday dismissed a promise by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to release 400 Palestinian prisoners as little more than “propaganda” to impress Washington.
“This comment is pure propaganda because he is in the United States,” Planning Minister Ghassan Khatib told reporters. “Sharon was supposed to release 400 prisoners under the Sharm El-Sheikh agreements but he didn’t. We don’t believe what Sharon says, it is what he does on the ground that counts.”
Khatib was reacting to a promise by Sharon, who is currently in Washington for talks with Jewish American groups, to release some 400 prisoners on his return to Israel in a bid to “help” Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas. The 400 prisoners were due to have been released by Israel as part of a confidence-building package agreed by Sharon and Abbas at a summit in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh on Feb. 8, at which the two leaders announced an end to hostilities.
Israel committed to free some 900 prisoners in all but has so far released just 500 after Sharon announced in early May that further releases were on ice. “Since Sharm El-Sheikh, Israel has arrested more than 400 Palestinians,” Khatib charged.
Sharon’s announcement came just two days before Abbas is due at the White House for his first talks as Palestinian leader with US President George W. Bush. Abbas said he would ask Bush to “stick seriously” to a Middle East peace plan and avoid promises to Israel over the outcome of negotiations. Palestinians welcome an Israeli plan to pull out of Gaza but bristle over continued expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank following a Bush assurance that Israel would not have to cede the entire territory under any realistic peace deal.
Abbas’ trip to the White House will be the first by a Palestinian president since earlier peace talks aimed at Palestinian statehood collapsed into bloodshed in 2000. Abbas said he would tout to Bush his achievements since being elected in January, including a cease-fire he wrung from militants and a start to security reforms — both preconditions of a US-devised “road map” peace plan.
But he would also urge Bush to make Israel uphold its obligations in the plan by, for instance, twinning the pullout of 8,500 settlers from Gaza with a freeze on construction in much larger settlements in the occupied West Bank.
“We will go and demand from the Americans to do their duty. What is their duty? It is to stick seriously to the road map,” Abbas told the Arabic satellite television network Al-Jazeera.
