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Abbas, Israeli minister meet in Tunis

Posted on: Wednesday, 16 November 2005, 12:20 CST

By Elana Ringler

TUNIS (Reuters) - Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met twice on the sidelines of a technology summit on Wednesday, boosting contacts a day after a U.S.-brokered deal to open the Gaza Strip 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 told reporters, speaking about the first round of talks.

"I reminded him that this (Gaza deal) was the first agreement signed in five years and that now we should really close that gap and not only implement what has been signed but sign new agreements," he said.

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.

The European Union has pledged to help prevent arms reaching Gaza, which Israel quit in September after 38 years' occupation and now fears could become a base for Islamic militants.

"It (border crossing arrangement) should be made with full security that will be promised to the Israelis and to the tourists that are coming to Israel," Shalom said.

A planned summit between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has stalled over renewed violence in spite of a truce they declared in February and the Gaza withdrawal.

ELECTION IN JANUARY

At their first meeting of the day, Shalom reaffirmed to Abbas that Israel opposed 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 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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