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Israeli minister, Palestinian leader meet in Tunis

Posted on: Wednesday, 16 November 2005, 10:29 CST

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."

Source: REUTERS

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