West Asian peace hopes stir despite new violence

The two sides said after their highest-level talks in weeks that contacts would continue but provided little sign of a breakthrough.

Neither ruled out an eventual resumption of full peace negotiations but both indicated that more work lay ahead before the stalled process could be firmly back on track.

“You cannot say the talks were good or bad,” senior Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rdainah said. “The meeting was a part of the contacts to try to establish a ground to rescue the peace process and to talk about the future of that peace process”.

Abu Rdainah said no date had been set for more talks, although contacts would continue.

The Palestinian National Security forces later said army snipers had killed policeman Nihad Hamtash, 28, at the checkpoint near Ramallah.

The statement said Hamtash was hit in the neck and chest by two live rounds and that another policeman had been critically-wounded by shooting from a nearby Jewish settlement in what it called an unprovoked incident.

The Israeli army said it was checking the report.

In Jerusalem, Israeli police were out in force near the Al-Aqsa mosque, where Muslims are to pray on the third Friday of the holy month of Ramzan. A Palestinian was killed a week ago after prayers at the holy site.

The shrine, known to Jews as Temple Mount, has been a focus of violence in which 320 people, mostly Palestinians, have died. The dead include 38 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs.

Arafat met Ben-Ami and Sher, a peace negotiator and aide to Prime Minister Ehud Barak, began talks late on Thursday at the Erez Checkpoint on the Israel-Gaza border amid stepped up international pressure to revive peace talks.

Ben-Ami and Sher have helped steer peace negotiations during Barak’s 18 months in office.

Israeli army radio said the sides agreed to renew talks next week and resume security cooperation that had mostly broken off.

An aide to Ben-Ami said afterwards that he did not rule out the possibility that peace talks would be resumed some time in the near future.

“I don’t say that we agreed to renew negotiations but I don’t rule out the possibility negotiations will resume soon.”

“It was a good meeting…they agreed on a joint effort to implement the Sharm el-Sheikh understandings, end the violence” and bring things to a point where talks can resume, he said.

In the understandings reached at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in October both sides pledged to end clashes that began in late September in the wake of a failed July peace summit.

Before the meeting, Palestinian officials speaking separately said efforts were likely to resume soon to try to reach a loose framework for a final peace deal before special Israeli Prime Ministerial elections expected in February.

They were sceptical talks would lead to a deal on sensitive final status issues before the vote.

“There are contacts with the Israelis at all levels to try to find a way to resume the talks and it is likely the talks will resume soon,” a senior Palestinian official said.

Palestinian officials said Arafat had come under pressure from the United States, Europe, and some Arab states to try to reach a deal with Barak before the elections.

Barak, who resigned on Sunday, has said he will use the election to seek a new peacemaking mandate. Political analysts say a peace deal would help his chances of re-election.

Israeli Police Chief Yehuda Wilk said due to the violence in Jerusalem last Friday, police would allow only Palestinian residents of Jerusalem aged 35 and over to pray at the al-Aqsa mosque compound.

But he told Israel Radio that, for the first time in weeks, Israel would allow Palestinians aged at least 45 from the West Bank and Gaza at the mosque if they came in special buses.

On Thursday, Israeli soldiers in Gaza killed a former member of the militant Hamas group in what Islamic militants said was the latest in a series of assassinations of Palestinian activists.

The Israeli army said soldiers trying to arrest the man had shot him when he reached for a gun. It said he was still active in Hamas, which has carried out a spate of deadly bomb attacks against Israelis.

Israel said on Thursday it would allow 10,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza to enter the Jewish state to work for the first time since early in the uprising.