Sharon, Abbas fail to resolve Gaza issues
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-22 07:55

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas failed Tuesday to resolve key issues on Israel's planned Gaza withdrawal, and the Palestinian chief said he received no positive answers in a "difficult" meeting — their first since they agreed to a truce four months ago.

With the Gaza pullout to begin in less than two months, the summit had been expected to kick off a determined effort by the two sides to work together to ensure the pullout proceeds smoothly and peacefully.

But a new wave of Palestinian attacks and Israel's overnight arrest of dozens of militants dampened hopes. And the frosty atmosphere at the meeting itself raised doubts over whether the leaders can work together on the withdrawal, much less on further peace moves.

Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (2nd R) meets Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (2nd L) at Sharon's residence in Jerusalem in this picture, released by the Palestinian Authority press office June 21, 2005.[Reuters]

The Palestinians expressed frustration after the more than two-hour session at Sharon's official residence in Jerusalem, the first time top Palestinian and Israeli leaders have met in the city. The Palestinians have long claimed that east Jerusalem should be their capital.

"This was a difficult meeting, and did not live up to our expectations," Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia told reporters. "In all the basic issues for which we were expecting positive responses, there were none."

The Palestinians wanted concrete results announced at the summit, such as Israel releasing more prisoners and also easing roadblocks and other restrictions that have crippled life in the West Bank. Abbas needs such achievements to bolster his standing among his people.

Israeli officials said there was some progress. In a speech after the meeting, Sharon said he and Abbas "agreed during the meeting on full coordination of our exit from Gaza." He did not offer details.

Palestinians follow the news on the summit of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, at an electronic shop in the West Bank city of Hebron June 21, 2005.[Reuters]

Israel also said Sharon offered to return control of two more West Bank towns to the Palestinian Authority and would consider freeing more prisoners if the Palestinians took steps to end violence.

The Palestinians were unmoved. Mohammed Dahlan, the Palestinian minister in charge of coordinating Israel's Gaza withdrawal, said bitterly: "There was nothing, nothing."

Sharon and Abbas last met Feb. 8 in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik, where they agreed to a cease-fire that was hailed as an end to more than four years of conflict.

Violence plummeted then, but it has flared recently. Over the weekend, Islamic Jihad began a series of attacks that killed two Israelis. In response, Israeli forces swept through the West Bank early Tuesday, arresting 52 suspected Islamic Jihad members in the first large crackdown since the truce.

Sharon chided Abbas at the start of the meeting, saying the violence had to stop.

"When we were in Sharm el-Sheik you said that you would exert all efforts to stop the terror and begin to remove the infrastructure of terror, but the action never happened," Sharon said in comments caught by a microphone.

In a sign of the divisions at the meeting, the two leaders did not hold a joint news conference afterward, and Abbas did not address journalists on his own, as scheduled, sending Qureia instead.

After the meeting, Israel Radio said Sharon gave Abbas permission to begin preparations for reopening Gaza's airport and harbor. The opening of the ports is seen as key to reducing Gaza's isolation once Israel pulls out of the coastal strip.

Sharon also told Abbas that Israel would hand over the West Bank towns of Qalqiliya and Bethlehem to Palestinian control in two weeks, if the Palestinians quell attacks, Sharon adviser Raanan Gissin told The Associated Press. Israel also would consider releasing more prisoners and allowing the return of Palestinians deported for involvement in violence, officials said.

The February truce called for Israel to hand over five towns, but Sharon froze the process after the first two, charging that the Palestinians had not disarmed extremists in the areas under their control.

Israel demands that Abbas crack down on the militants, but Abbas has shied from armed confrontation, preferring to try to persuade the extremist groups to disarm.

Gissin said Sharon offered more gestures in exchange for quiet, including allowing 26,000 more Palestinian laborers and 13,400 more merchants to work in Israel.

"They must also understand that there is a limit to how much Israel can make concessions," Gissin said. Israel "will make concessions, but it cannot make any concession whatsoever when it comes to the security of the state of Israel."

Khadr Adnan, an Islamic Jihad spokesman, said if the Palestinian Authority and Egypt, which brokered the cease-fire, did not take action to ensure Israel's commitment to the truce, "then we will consider ourselves to be outside (it), and will call upon all Palestinian factions to do the same."

Islamic Jihad is the smaller of the two main militant groups in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. In addition to this week's violence, the group carried out the deadliest single attack since the truce began, a Feb. 25 suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv nightclub that killed five Israelis.

The larger militant group, Hamas, has been relatively quiet as it tries to cement a political following ahead of Palestinian parliamentary elections.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, called Tuesday's summit a "total failure" and urged Abbas to stop meeting with Israelis.

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