Mofaz and Abbas to meet on transfer of W. Bank cities to

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas will meet this week in an effort to advance talks between Israel and the PA. Mofaz and Abbas will try to make progress on the issue of transferring security responsibility for West Bank cities into the hands of the Palestinians. For the past few weeks, Israel and the PA have failed to conclude the issue, with talks on Jericho and then Tul Karm failing to yield a deal. Israel announced a suspension of talks on the matter some 10 days ago in response to the terror attack in Tel Aviv on February 25. Yesterday, the heads of the Israeli and Palestinian security committees – Brigadier General Gadi Eisencott and General Haj Ismail – met again, at the request of the Palestinians. Military sources reported a good atmosphere in the talks and said the two officers were expected to meet again later this week. IDF sources, meanwhile, advised a cautious approach to Palestinian reports that the two officers had come to an agreement on transferring security responsibility for Tul Karm, and perhaps Jericho, to the PA already tomorrow. The IDF sources reported that Eisencott had agreed to consider the option in a positive light, but that the matter required approval from the political echelon and there could be additional obstacles to such a move. The delay in transferring the cities to the PA stemmed primarily from opposing interpretations of the significance of the move. The Palestinians saw it as a return to the Oslo Accord track and wanted the return of the cities to precisely reflect the situation prior to the outbreak of hostilities in the territories on September 28, 2000. Israel, for its part, believes that the violence of the past years has a price and that the pre-intifada state cannot be restored immediately. Now, however, both sides wish to push forward security cooperation between them. Sources close to Abbas say that the transfer of responsibility for the cities will facilitate real political progress, while Israeli military sources fear that a delay in handing over the cities will allow the Palestinians to refrain from taking steps against terrorism. Egypt, meanwhile, wants to send a team of Egyptian security advisers to the Gaza Strip prior to implementation of the disengagement plan in July. The proposal was raised during the course of recent security talks between the sides. The Egyptians also proposed training another group of Palestinian security personnel in Cairo – over and above the personnel already in Egypt for this purpose. On March 15, talks between the PA and representatives of the terror organizations are slated to resume in Cairo. The talks will center on prolonging the truce period in the territories. Abbas wants to consolidate the understandings on the issue and come to a cease-fire agreement. The talks were postponed by two weeks in the wake of the Tel Aviv attack. Sources in the Israeli defense establishment have expressed doubts with regard to the possibility of reaching a cease-fire (hudna) agreement in light of fierce opposition to such a move on the part of some of the terror groups. In a meeting yesterday with visiting Jordanian Foreign Minister Hani Mulki, Mofaz said that the PA had to close the gap between Abbas’ statements and the events in the field. Mofaz said the PA was taking a point-by-point rather than a deep-rooted approach to dealing with terror, and warned that further attacks would halt the political progress. Mofaz also stressed the role of Hezbollah in directing terror activists in the territories and encouraging them to carry out attacks against Israel. BPI-info