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Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert arrives the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Wednesday. (AP)
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| By Associated Press September 28, 2006 |
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Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in interviews broadcast Thursday that he hopes to meet with Mahmoud Abbas in the coming days, but would not make any goodwill gestures to the Palestinian president until an Israeli soldier held in Gaza is released.
The prime minister is under intense domestic pressure following his conduct of the war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon that ended last month. He gave wide-ranging interviews to Israel's two main radio stations to defend his government's stance on everything from possible talks with Syria to the chances of pursuing new peace moves with the Palestinians.
Contacts between Israel and the Palestinians were frozen after the Hamas militant group won Palestinian parliamentary elections in January and formed a Cabinet. Relations worsened after Hamas-linked militants attacked an Israeli army post on June 25, killing two soldiers and capturing a third. Israeli responded with a widescale offensive in the Gaza Strip.
There has been talk about holding a summit since Olmert was elected in March. The two leaders had a brief informal breakfast meeting, but no working session.
Asked in his interview with Israel Radio when such a meeting was likely, Olmert said: "I hope in the coming days, I hope. I, in any case, asked him. I told him that I would be happy to meet with him."
However, Abbas aides said the Palestinian leader is not interested in holding a summit unless he has assurances it would deal with more than the fate of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, the captured soldier.
Palestinian lawmaker Saeb Erekat, an Abbas confidant who usually helps prepare for such meetings, said no preparations for a summit were under way. "I think President Abbas said he is willing to meet Mr. Olmert. I hope we can prepare a meeting very well. Such meetings need preparation," he said.
When asked whether such a meeting could happen soon, he paused before saying: "I cannot comment if it can be in the coming days."
The militants have said they would not free Shalit unless Israel releases hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Olmert, who has repeatedly rejected that demand, said he would not release prisoners, even as a goodwill gesture, before Shalit's release.
"I am not making gestures," Olmert told Israel Radio in an interview broadcast Thursday. "Until Gilad Shalit is freed, I will not deal with freeing Palestinian prisoners."
Olmert said he hoped a meeting with Abbas would lead to broader peace talks that would lead to a peace deal between the sides.
Peace talks between the two sides have been frozen for years. Israel cut off contacts with the Palestinian Cabinet after the election of Hamas, which calls for Israel's destruction. However, Israel has said it would maintain ties with Abbas, of the more moderate Fatah Party, who was elected separately last year.
Abbas has been trying to pressure Hamas to moderate its views, but efforts to form a national unity government -- which could help spark new peace talks -- have stalled.
If no peace deal can be worked out, Olmert said in the interviews he would carry out his plan to unilaterally withdraw from most of the West Bank while strengthening Israel's hold over large settlement blocs. However, Olmert's aides have said he has abandoned the plan following his plunge in popularity after the war in Lebanon, which killed more than 150 Israelis and more than 850 Lebanese.
Recent polls showed that less than a quarter of Israelis were happy with Olmert's job performance and nearly 70 percent disapproved of his actions as prime minister.
Olmert presented Israel's performance in the war as a clear victory -- an assessment disputed by many in Israel and Lebanon -- and said he did not foresee another violent conflict beyond minor border skirmishes between Israel and Hezbollah in the near future.
"I do not rule out that the sources that activated Hezbollah from the beginning, the Iranians and to some degree the Syrians, will make every effort to activate them in the future, and it could be that as a result we can expect tests," Olmert said. "But, in my opinion, the chance that Hezbollah will be dragged into a broad military conflict of the type that we had is very small. The reality has changed and Hezbollah knows this well."
The Lebanon war erupted July 12 after Hezbollah carried out a cross-border raid, killing three soldiers and capturing two others. After 34 days of fighting, the war ended with a U.N.-brokered cease-fire that has brought thousands of Lebanese troops and international peacekeepers into southern Lebanon to patrol the border area.
Olmert waved off recent demonstrations, in which dozens of Lebanese residents -- waving yellow Hezbollah flags -- threw stones at Israeli soldiers patrolling the border. So long as the protesters are unarmed, Olmert said, they are meaningless.
"The flags that you see are flags of Lebanese residents who identify with Hezbollah, and we never thought that we would be able to kill or remove all the people in south Lebanon who live this way," Olmert said. "None of them is walking around with weapons, and all those who tried to carry weapons were killed by our forces in Lebanon in the past two months."
The war also created new momentum in relations between Israel and moderate Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, he said.
Olmert was evasive when asked about Israeli media reports that he had met secretly in recent days with a senior representative of the Saudi government in Jordan. "I think all the speculation on this issue is superfluous," Olmert told Israel's Army Radio.
Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry has denied such a meeting.
Olmert expressed appreciation for the Saudi government's restraint in criticizing Israel during the Lebanon war.
"During the war, we fought against Muslims, and Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Abu Dhabi and other governments, including Indonesia, talked -- in the context of this war -- against the Muslims and not against us," he said.
Olmert also rejected a Syrian overture to open peace negotiations, accusing Syrian President Bashar Assad of harboring terrorists, including Hamas' top leaders, who are accused of orchestrating Shalit's capture.
"It (Syria) was and remains the main supporter of the Palestinian terror groups who daily try to carry out terrorism against the state of Israel. In my opinion, this is not a foundation on which it is possible to hold peace negotiations," Olmert said.
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