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Palestinian PM Salam Fayad (photo: flash90)
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| By Israel Insider staff August 6, 2007 |
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Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is to meet the Palestinian chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, in Jericho today to form a basic outline for future agreements ahead of the US-sponsored Mideast peace summit slated for the fall. This meeting marks the first time that an Israeli leader will visit a PA city since the outbreak of the second Intifada.
What exactly is on the agenda is yet unclear. While PA officials have said that among the topics for discussion borders, the Palestinian refugees, settlements in the West Bank and the future of Jerusalem, sources in the Prime Minister's Office have said that talks will focus on building Palestinian governing institutions and discussing in broad strokes the content and contours of a future Palestinian state.
"The purpose is to achieve the maximum possible mutual understandings on a two-state solution prior to the summit in the fall and in a way that will not endanger the entire process," a senior Israeli political source in Jerusalem said Sunday, Haaretz reported. Israel's aim is to stabilize Abbas' rule in the West Bank, allowing the PA to carry out its commitments, particularly on the security front.
Originally, Fayad made clear that the transfer of some West Bank cities to PA security control was one of the PA's most significant requests of Israel. Israel did not immediately reject the proposal, but demanded that PA security forces be prepared to take action against any militants who may try to carry out a terror attack against Israel from areas that Israel would put in PA jurisdiction.
However, Palestinian PM Salam Fayad told Israeli officials that PA security forces cannot "impose law and order in the West Bank at this time."
"However, after we realized that there were Israeli limitations on our demands to expand the 'fugitives agreement,' and the security forces in the West Bank are still not prepared to take on responsibility in the cities, Fayad changed his stance on the matter of negotiations, and this became essential -- almost exclusively so -- in bolstering the PA's position in the West Bank," a senior Palestinian official said Sunday, according to Haaretz.
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