Uphill all the way at Sharon Abbas summit

However, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie, who attended what officials described as a tense summit at Sharon’s Jerusalem residence, said, ‘‘It was a difficult meeting and it did not meet our expectations.’’

At the summit, Sharon reaffirmed his bedrock position that no progress could be made towards peace unless the Palestinian Authority cracked down on militants.

In a gesture to Abbas, Sharon offered to pull back Israeli forces from Bethlehem and Qalqilya in the West Bank within two weeks, but conditioned the move on a credible Palestinian plan to rein in militants there, the Israeli leader’s spokesman said. ‘‘We will not allow a situation whereby disengagement is carried out under fire,’’ Sharon said at a hoteliers’ convention. ‘‘We will not stop the disengagement—we will stop the terror.’’

Abbas needs to show militants clear commitments from Israel to relieve Palestinians of the burdens of occupation in return for efforts to ensure a peaceful pullout. ‘‘I feel as though you are punishing us because there is terror, as though I am responsible for this terror, as though I carry it out,’’ an Israeli official quoted Abbas as telling Sharon. ‘‘You don’t give me anything because there is terror and in that you are in essence hurting me. You make me weak.’’

In March, Abbas coaxed Palestinian factions into agreeing to a ‘‘period of calm’’ until the end of the year, conditional on Israel ending its operations against them. —Reuters