GAZA CITY, 8 October 2005 — Top Palestinian and Israeli officials met yesterday to thrash out the details of a summit between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Mahmoud Abbas, the first since Israel’s pullout from the Gaza Strip.
Sharon advisers Dov Weisglass and Shalom Turjman held talks with chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and Planning Minister Ghassan Khatib that broke up without agreement on a summit date.
Erekat, who returned to Gaza City to brief Abbas on the talks, told AFP a second preparatory session would take place before the leaders meet.
“We discussed the agenda,” Erekat said. “Ways to implement the road map and the Sharm El-Sheikh agreements” will be discussed by Abbas and Sharon, he said.
The summit will be the third for the two leaders since they unveiled a series of confidence-building measures at a landmark peace conference in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh last February.
The internationally drafted road map peace plan has languished ever since its fanfare launch in Jordan two years ago.
An official in Sharon’s office characterized yesterday’s meeting as “positive and fruitful” saying that follow-up talks would take place next week.
“The meeting focused on goodwill gestures, the passage issue between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, joint Israeli-Palestinian committees and relaunching the Sharm El-Sheikh agreements,” said the source.
Although the summit is expected before Abbas meets US President George W. Bush in Washington on Oct. 20, its date has been clouded in confusion.
Jordan’s King Abdallah, and Palestinian and Israeli officials had said it would take place next Tuesday. A scheduled Oct. 2 meeting was canceled amid flared violence in the Gaza Strip.
But Abbas himself denied that any date had been determined. “When the date is fixed, we will have a lot of demands,” he told reporters in Gaza City on Thursday. Chief on the list are Palestinian prisoner releases, Israeli withdrawals from West Bank towns, an end to settlement activity and a halt to Israel’s controversial wall, Abbas said.
Israel has indicated a readiness to use the Abbas-Sharon summit to make concessions to strengthen the Palestinian leader, squeezed by militants and ordered by MPs to appoint a new government to better address insecurity.
Tomorrow, Sharon is to meet Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz to agree on the issue of Palestinian access between the Gaza Strip and West Bank, public radio reported.
Although Israel is leaning toward building a rail link as the cheapest option, that is unlikely to satisfy Palestinian demands for immediate safe passage to ensure Gaza does not become a prison closed to the outside world.
But the Yediot Aharonot newspaper said Israel may allow the Palestinian Authority to buy weapons to better patrol Gaza, following US pressure and assessments that such arms are needed to clamp down on radicals from Hamas.
A recent round of deadly Israeli airstrikes and militant rocket attacks, which Abbas proved largely powerless in ending, shook international hopes for a breakthrough in the peace process after Israel’s historic pullout from Gaza.
Although Abbas has repeatedly called on armed factions to stop carrying weapons in public, powerful militias have so far flouted calls to disarm.
Three top Hamas militants kidnapped at gunpoint in the West Bank on Thursday were released late yesterday, with one of the freed men saying those responsible were connected to the ruling Fatah faction.
Riad Ras, Hassan Safi and Bassem Obeido were seized at gunpoint under the cover of darkness in the towns of Tulkarm, Bethlehem and Hebron overnight Thursday. Safi told AFP that he had been kidnapped by members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, linked to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party.
— With input from agencies
