Israelis and Palestinians schedule first summit in over four years

Thursday, February 03, 2005

The Israeli and Palestinian leaders were set for their first summit in more than four years after Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas accepted Wednesday an Egyptian invitation for talks on the shores of the Red Sea next week.

Preparing the ground for the summit, Egypt was holding talks with the leaders of the Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad on a possible cease-fire with Israel

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah II will also attend the summit in the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Feb. 8, as part of a concerted international effort to forge ahead with the Middle East peace process.

The invitation was delivered to Sharon by Egyptian intelligence services chief Omar Suleiman in a meeting in Jerusalem.

"In light of progress in the security talks with the Palestinians, Egyptian President Mubarak has invited Prime Minister Sharon and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas to meet next Tuesday at Sharm el-Sheikh," a statement from the prime minister's office said.

"Prime Minister Sharon has accepted the invitation," the statement added.

At the end of a trip to Turkey, Abbas also confirmed he would be going to Egypt and expressed hope the summit would yield positive results. "We will go to the meeting with hope," Abbas said.

The Red Sea summit had been arranged due to the "critical stage the peace process is going through" and to "achieve concrete progress on the Palestinian track," said state media in Cairo.

The White House on Wednesday welcomed the planned summit as an "encouraging step" toward Middle East peace.

"It's important that the parties continue to talk about how they can work together to move forward," said spokesman Scott McClellan. He declined to say whether the United States would be represented when the two leaders meet next Tuesday at Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh resort, but noted that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice planned a trip to the region a day before the summit.

In an apparent Egyptian effort to shore up and formalize the cease-fire, leaders of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad militant factions were in Cairo for talks on Wednesday.

Suleiman had met Islamic Jihad's leader Ramadan Shallah in Cairo on Tuesday, said a Jihad spokesman.

"There is no agreement yet on truce" with Israel, he said in a phone interview from the Gaza Strip. But the talks are "taking place in a positive atmosphere."

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal told The Associated Press he is in Cairo and expects to meet Suleiman on Wednesday evening after his return from Israel.

In an interview with Arab TV station Al-Jazeera, Mashaal said a Palestinian cease-fire was "dependent on a summit," but also depended on Israeli willingness to offer concessions. Mashaal has said Hamas would accept a temporary truce on condition that the Israelis halt their targeted killings of Palestinian militants and release all Palestinian prisoners.

The cease-fire and prisoners issue are also expected to top the agenda at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit, said Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei.

"We are making very significant efforts to secure a cease-fire at the same time between us and the Israelis," he told reporters.

Qorei said the Palestinians would like Rice to attend the summit.

After coming to power in February 2001, Sharon boycotted Abbas's late predecessor, Yasser Arafat, declaring him an obstacle to peace and kept him under virtual house arrest in the West Bank for nearly three years.

However, Arafat's death in November and Abbas's election on Jan. 9 have prompted a renewed push for peace after more than four years of violence.

Both Abbas and Sharon have said they detect an "historic opportunity" to make progress in the peace process.

Sharon has been impressed by Abbas's recent efforts to halt the violence, including the deployment of thousands of troops throughout the Gaza Strip with orders to prevent anti-Israeli attacks.

As both sides sought to build confidence, Israel said it would freeze its pursuit of wanted militants.

"We will give Abu Mazen (Abbas) a chance by suspending our operations against the wanted Palestinians, but this is a freeze not an amnesty," Amos Gilad, chief political advisor to Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, said.

As part of their efforts to end attacks, Palestinian security forces launched an operation to search out tunnels used to smuggle weapons and ammunition under the border between Egypt and southern Gaza. - Agencies