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Israel Set to Make Prison Deal With Abbas
 Israel expects Mahmoud Abbas to win Sunday's Palestinian presidential election and is ready to open talks with him, offering to free Palestinian prisoners if Abbas cracks down on Palestinian rocket attacks, senior Israeli officials said. Opinion polls showed Abbas with more than double the support of his nearest rival, democracy activist Mustafa Barghouti, but he was struggling to win a clear mandate to push forward with his agenda of resuming peace talks with Israel and reforming the corruption-riddled Palestinian Authority. The Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the first meeting should take place shortly after the election.To facilitate the elections, Israel also began slowly easing travel restrictions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Saturday, though problems remained and new checkpoints sprouted in some areas, international election observers said. Despite the difficulties, Palestinian election officials said ballot boxes were distributed to more than 1,000 polling stations throughout the West Bank and Gaza for Sunday's vote to replace Yasser Arafat, who died in November, as Palestinian Authority president. Posted by: Fred 2005-01-10 |
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