Israeli-Palestinian summit set to be cancelled
AFP
Date: 09-26-05
JERUSALEM (AFP) - A summit next week between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas looks set to be cancelled amid a flare-up of violence in the Gaza Strip, officials on both sides said.
"This meeting will probably be cancelled at the request of the Palestinians," a close aide to Sharon who would not be named said on Monday.
"We have cancelled preliminary talks to protest at the inability of the Palestinian Authority to put an end to the rocket fire from
the Gaza Strip this weekend against southern Israel," he added.
Abbas has also told the Israelis that he does not want to join talks with Sharon "without preparations", he said.
"Under these circumstances, there is every chance that the meeting will be cancelled," said the official.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat confirmed that a meeting designed to draw up the summit agenda had been scrapped and that the summit itself now looked unlikely.
"It is not sure that the summit will take place for it needs better preparations and we are not ready," Erakat told AFP.
Sharon announced in New York on September 18 that he would meet with Abbas on October 2, for their first encounter since the Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip that was wound up on September 12.
On Sunday, Abbas said he was still ready to meet the Israeli leader in spite of the escalating violence in the Gaza Strip that he said was not justified.
"If the preparations can be finalised, there is nothing to prevent this meeting," Abbas told reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Israeli troops have carried out a series of air raids in the Gaza Strip since Saturday after Palestinian militants fired dozens of rockets into southern Israel wounding six people.
Four members of the radial Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements were killed in the Israeli attacks. Israeli forces have also arrested some 300 suspected Palestinian militants on the West Bank since Sunday.
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