VARIOUS: ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER MEETS CABINET BEFORE MEETING WITH PALESTINIAN PM TO DISCUSS RELEASE OF PALESTINIAN PRISONERS

Record ID: 400755

  • Title: VARIOUS: ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER MEETS CABINET BEFORE MEETING WITH PALESTINIAN PM TO DISCUSS RELEASE OF PALESTINIAN PRISONERS
  • Date: 20th July 2003
  • Summary: (U3) JERUSALEM (JULY 20, 2003) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER ARIEL SHARON ARRIVING AT CABINET MEETING 0.13 2. VARIOUS, SHARON AND MINISTERS AT MEETING (4 SHOTS) 0.04 (U4) JERUSALEM (JULY 20, 2003) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 3. VARIOUS, CONVOY OF VEHICLES ARRIVING AT ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER ARIEL SHARON'S OFFICE (3
  • Embargoed: 4th August 2003 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: JERUSALEM/RAMALLAH, WEST BANK/GAZA
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Reuters ID: LVA47T6NTM16IRGHDBQ3NW94WQ9M
  • Story Text: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has met with his
    cabinet ministers on Sunday (July 20) ahead of a meeting with
    his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas.

    Abbas said he expected to receive from Israeli leader
    Ariel Sharon on Sunday a list of prisoners Israel planned to
    release in a bid to shore up a Middle East peace plan.

    Ahead of the meeting between the two leaders in Jerusalem,
    Israeli officials said only about 400 of some 6,000
    Palestinians held by Israel would be freed at this stage.

    But the officials said more could follow if the moderate
    Abbas carried out a crackdown on militants mandated by a
    U.S.-backed "road map" to peace.

    "We will discuss the issue of Palestinian prisoners. In
    principle (we are talking about) all, we hope that they be
    released gradually," Abbas told Reuters.

    The meeting will kick off 10 days of Middle East
    diplomacy, including separate visits by Abbas and Sharon to
    Washington later this month for talks with U.S. President
    George W. Bush.

    Abbas needs a substantial number of prisoners released to
    bolster his credibility among Palestinians and facilitate
    implementation of steps in the peace plan expected to be
    unpopular among Palestinians, such as curbs on militant
    groups.

    Sharon will reject freeing prisoners with "blood on their
    hands" but might loosen criteria for release to enable members
    of Hamas and Islamic Jihad who were not involved in
    anti-Israeli attacks to go free, Israeli diplomatic sources
    said.

    Sunday's meeting at Sharon's Jerusalem office will be his
    fourth with Abbas since the Palestinian prime minister assumed
    the post in April as part of sweeping reforms of the
    Palestinian Authority demanded by the United States.

    Sharon demands Abbas begin disarming militant groups
    operating in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and says no progress
    can be made on the road map charting a path to the creation of
    a Palestinian state by 2005 -- unless the groups are
    dismantled.

    Abbas has vowed to punish anyone who violates the
    three-month truce in a nearly three-year-old Palestinian
    uprising for statehood, but has avoided a tough crackdown for
    fear of sparking civil war.

    Palestinian officials said Abbas also would ask Sharon to
    do his part under the road map, to halt settlement expansion
    in the West Bank and Gaza, dismantle new settler-outposts
    built without Israeli government approval and remove
    checkpoints that limit Palestinian freedom of movement.

    Islamic Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups held a rally in
    Gaza on Sunday for the release of prisoners.

    "It is the time for all Palestinian prisoners to be
    released and all Palestinian political groups give this
    initiative of ceasefire for the sake of the prisoners. So we
    want to continue our efforts to drawn attention the whole
    world for this issue," a Hamas spokesman, Ismail Abu Shanab
    said.

    Militant groups, which agreed to a temporary truce on June
    29, have given Abbas three months to secure the release of a
    substantial number of prisoners or face the prospect of the
    ceasefire dissolving.




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