The historic summit between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be held in Egypt next week. This is the first summit between the two sides in four years of armed conflict, officials said yesterday. The talks, to be joined by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdallah, would aim to solidify a shaky new de facto cease-fire by setting in motion a peace process based on a US-backed road map to a Palestinian state.Sharon, who refused to meet Abbas' late predecessor Yasser Arafat, and the Palestinian leader accepted invitations from Mubarak to meet at Sharm El-Sheikh on the Red Sea on Feb. 8. Mubarak's office said it was time for a summit "in light of the delicacy of the stage the peace process is going through and in an endeavor to seize the auspicious opportunity to achieve tangible progress on the Palestinian track". A senior Israeli official said Sharon would be looking at the summit for Palestinian commitments to "prevent terrorism" by dissolving militant groups. Persuading them to observe a truce was not enough to launch road map talks, he said. "They want to move fast on political issues but we will accept no leapfrogging over security commitments written into the first phase of the road map," he said.
Abbas, citing a concern not to stir civil unrest, has said he wants to co-opt rather than crush militants many Palestinians regard favorably as "freedom fighters" in occupied territories. Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei said Abbas would seek an Israeli promise to stop all military action, free thousands of jailed militants and withdraw forces from Palestinian areas. He said Palestinians "will exert 100 percent effort" on security but expected Israel to honor reciprocal obligations in the road map, including a halt to expansion of settlements in the West Bank.