VARIOUS: OUTGOING ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER EHUD BARAK AND PRIME MINISTER ARIEL SHARON MEET TO DISCUSS UNITY GOVERNMENT
Record ID:
400879
VARIOUS: OUTGOING ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER EHUD BARAK AND PRIME MINISTER ARIEL SHARON MEET TO DISCUSS UNITY GOVERNMENT
- Title: VARIOUS: OUTGOING ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER EHUD BARAK AND PRIME MINISTER ARIEL SHARON MEET TO DISCUSS UNITY GOVERNMENT
- Date: 17th February 2001
- Summary: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (FEBRUARY 15, 2001) (REUTERS) 1. MV CARETAKER ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER EHUD BARAK AND ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER-ELECT ARIEL SHARON SITTING; SCU SHARON SEATED SCU BARAK SEATED; SCU SHARON SEATED; SCU SHARON AND BARAK SHAKING HANDS; MV CAMERAMEN (6 SHOTS) 0.34 2. LAS BUILDING TILT DOWN MV ISRAELI GUARDS OUTSIDE MEETING BETWEEN SHARON MEET
- Embargoed: 4th March 2001 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: ASHKELON AND TEL AVIV, ISRAEL/ GAZA CITY, GAZA / GILO, WEST BANK/WEST BANK-JERUSALEM BORDER
- City:
- Country: Palestinian Territories
- Reuters ID: LVA5FKA3WDRPZKGW1GYWGNLPKHSV
- Story Text: Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Prime
Minister-elect Ariel Sharon have met in Tel Aviv to discuss
the possibility of a unity government and a proposal that
Barak serve as a defence minister in Sharon's government.
Earlier in the day both Israel and the Palestinians buried
the latest victims of the five months of violence. Israelis
held funerals for some of the eight people killed when a
Palestinian driver drove into a crowded bus stop.
But Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has accused Israel
of escalating the conflict, endangering peace and risking
Middle East stability.
Sharon, who swept to victory in last week's
elections, met caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Barak of the
Labour party for coalition talks in Tel Aviv on Thursday
evening (February 15) as Labour party officials said the party
would have to decide on whether they were going to join a
unity government by Friday (February 16) at the latest.
The Labour Party authorised Barak to meet Sharon to
conclude outstanding issues.
Barak has also said he was considering joining as defence
minister.
The two parties, Israel's largest, have been at odds over
how to make peace with the Palestinians. Sharon opposes the
territorial concessions backed by Barak. But both sides have
spoken of unity as a response to the Israeli-Palestinian
violence.
Earlier in the day Sharon met the European Union's Middle
East envoy Miguel Moratinos. Speaking after the meeting,
Sharon said: "I believed always and I believe now that Israel
needs unity, and I have said many times that I'm going to form
a national unity government and that is what I'm going to do."
"I think it's important, I think Israel needs unity and
that will enable us to really reach security and peace," he
added.
Meanwhile the funerals of all but one of the eight victims
of Wednesday's attack, seven soldiers and a civilian, were
held by Thursday. One of the soldiers will be buried on
Friday. Seventeen people were injured in the crash.
At a rain-drenched funeral for soldier Yasmin Karisi in
the city of Ashkelon, mourners held wreaths and sobbed under
umbrellas.
The bus attack in which a 35-year old Palestinian, Khalil
Abu Elba, rammed the bus he was driving into a crowd of
Israelis at a bus stop south of Tel Aviv, was the deadliest
incident in Israel for nearly four years since two Jerusalem
suicide bombings in 1997, and marks a new peak in violence
that has risen since Sharon, whom Arabs see as a war criminal,
was elected.
Palestinians also mourned the dead on Thursday as
thousands marched through the streets of the Gaza Strip for
the funeral of a Palestinian security man shot dead by Israeli
soldiers.
The Israeli army said its troops killed Nasser al-Hasanat,
a member of the Palestinian Preventive Security Service in
Gaza, in a shootout near the greenhouses of the Kfar Darom
settlement early on Thursday. Israel said Hasanat was trying
to penetrate the Jewish settlement.
Several of Hasanat's colleagues fired their rifles in the
air during the funeral. Leaders of Palestinian President
Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement also marched in the procession.
Almost 400 people have been killed since the Palestinians
began an uprising in late September against Israel's
occupation of the West Bank and Gaza after peace talks froze.
More than 300 Palestinians, 61 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs
have died.
Arafat said on Thursday (February 15) that Israel was
responsible for the escalation of violence in the Middle East.
"This serious escalation by the Israeli government is not
only dangerous to peace but also on stability in the Middle
East," Aarafat said.
Speaking to reporters on his return home from Arab states
and Turkey, the Palestinian leader welcomed a call by U.S.
President George W. Bush for both sides to restore calm.
"I thank him for this but he should be certain that we did
not use depleted uranium. We did not use poisonous gas,
helicopters, missiles, tanks and armoured carriers," Arafat
said.
Israel has faced international criticism for its targeted
killing of Palestinians it accuses of plotting violence. The
last of these was on Tuesday, when it used a helicopter
gunship to kill a member of Arafat's Force 17 security guards.
Israel has denied Palestinian allegations it uses bullets
armed with depleted uranium or poisonous gas to disperse
protests that began nearly five months ago in the wake of
failed peace moves.
There were visible sights of further fortifications around
Jerusalem and other cities. Tightened security saw cars and
drivers being closely examined by Israeli soldiers at
checkpoints, and fortifications were strengthened near the
Jewish settlement of Gilo which Israel considers a Jewish area
of Jerusalem.
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