Jerusalem peace talks fail on 'all basic issues'

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have failed to make progress at a summit towards resolving issues crucial to a smooth Israeli pullout from Gaza and peacemaking.

"It was a difficult meeting and it did not meet our expectations," Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmad Qureia said, after a tense two-hour meeting that was clouded by renewed violence and confrontation.

Mr Sharon renewed his calls for the Palestinians to curb the bombers and gunmen.

"Israel won't endanger itself, or its citizens," an official quoted him as saying.

"Israel is willing to be flexible. It is willing to take steps to move the peace process forward. But we have to see Palestinian action on the terrorist issue."

Among other familiar gestures hinted at by Mr Sharon "to demonstrate that the path of moderation will benefit the Palestinian people" was an increase in the number of workers and businessmen from the West Bank and Gaza allowed into Israel.

Without committing himself to specifics, he talked about easing the flow of commercial traffic through the Erez and Rafah checkpoints from Gaza to Israel and Egypt.

He also held out the carrot of a prisoner release.

The Palestinians, who arrived with a list of leaders they want freed, left disappointed.

They complained that the meeting produced too many statements of position and not enough deeds.

The summit, which took place in Mr Sharon's official residence, was the first ever held in Jerusalem, which the two nations claim as their capital.

The leaders are also understood to have discussed ways to co-ordinate the planned Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and part of the northern West Bank in August.

The talks were overshadowed by a resurgence of Palestinian attacks and a renewed Israeli declaration of war against Islamic Jihad.

With missiles and mortars hitting Israel's Gaza settlements every day, the truce that was agreed at the last Sharon-Abbas encounter in Sharm el-Sheikh four months ago was looking more fragile than ever.

Israeli troops arrested 52 Islamic Jihad activists on the West Bank after its gunmen shot dead an Israeli sergeant-major on the Gaza-Egyptian border on Sunday and a civilian motorist on the West Bank a day later.

A military spokesman indicated that Israel was no longer restricting itself to "ticking bombs", planning specific attacks.

"Islamic Jihad has taken itself absolutely out of the agreement with its attacks," Colonel Erez Winner, a senior West Bank commander, said.

"So we are operating fully against them, as we did before. Anyone we know who is affiliated with this organisation is a legitimate target."

Israel was also incensed by an attempted suicide bombing on Monday by a Gaza woman, aged 21, who was on her way for medical treatment in an Israeli hospital.

After suspicious guards at the Erez crossing asked her to stop, CCTV cameras caught her trying to detonate 10kgs of explosives concealed in her pants.

Wafa Bass had been sent by the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an offshoot of Mr Abbas' Al Fatah.

She told reporters from prison that she had intended to blow herself up in the Beersheba hospital where she had been treated for burns suffered last December.

- INDEPENDENT