Israeli minister, Palestinian leader meet in Tunis

By Corinne Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan
Shalom and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held two
meetings in Tunis on Wednesday, stepping up contacts a day
after a U.S.-brokered deal to open Gaza’s borders.

The talks between the two, attending the World Summit on
the Information Society in Tunis, marked the highest-level
contact between Israel and the Palestinians in months.

Shalom and Abbas first held what an Israeli official
described as an unscheduled meeting on the sidelines of the
conference before convening later in the day along with U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan for a second session.

“It was a good meeting,” Abbas, speaking to reporters, said
about the first round of talks. “We discussed the (Gaza)
agreement reached yesterday. We discussed the continuation of
such meetings.”

In rare progress in Middle East diplomacy, U.S. Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice brokered a deal on Tuesday to open
Gaza’s border to Egypt and for passage arrangements for
Palestinians between the coastal territory and the occupied
West Bank.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry official said Shalom and Abbas
spoke for a few minutes during their second meeting, which he
described as friendly. The official declined to say what was
discussed.

A planned summit between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon has been stalled by renewed violence despite a
ceasefire they declared in February and the completion of
Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in September.

An Israeli official said Abbas voiced his satisfaction over
the agreement, which includes European Union monitoring of the
Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt.

ELECTION IN JANUARY

At their first meeting of the day, Shalom reaffirmed to
Abbas Israel’s opposition to the participation of the militant
Hamas group in a Palestinian parliamentary election due in
January, the Israeli official said.

Sharon has said Hamas must not be allowed to take part in
the ballot until it disarms and amends a charter calling for
the destruction of the Jewish state.

Abbas has said a civil war would erupt if he tried to take
weapons away from the militants, who have spearheaded a
five-year-old Palestinian uprising.

Shalom’s preliminary talks with Abbas were attended by
Mauritianian President Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, and the Israeli
minister planned to meet at least one other Muslim leader in
Tunis, said spokesman Lior Ben Dor, without identifying him.

Tunisian-born Shalom, 47, brought to Israel as an infant by
his parents, hailed what he called a “breakthrough” in such
contacts, following an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire in
February and the Gaza withdrawal that ended 38 years of
military rule.

Israel has full diplomatic relations with four major Muslim
countries — Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Mauritania — and
interest offices or economic missions in several others.

“There is no doubt our situation is better today with
regard to ties with the Muslim world,” Shalom told Israel
Radio.

“I very much hope that those same good relations with the
governments of the Arab world will lead to contacts with the
people themselves.”