Israel has reached agreement with the Palestinians on the logistics of their upcoming election but both sides said talk of a broader deal to end their decades-old conflict was 'premature'.
The Palestinians had demanded Israel cease military operations and withdraw from Palestinian cities and towns to allow candidates to campaign for the January 9th presidential elections.
The Palestinians also insisted residents of east Jerusalem be allowed to vote, a demand that Israel had resisted.
The two sides have reached an agreement to hold the elections using the same procedures that were in place for the last Palestinian elections, Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said. "We received assurances that the elections of the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip will take place as they did in 1996," Erekat said. "I am satisfied with that. I am happy."
A senior Israeli official confirmed the two sides had reached an agreement in principle, based on the precedent of the 1996 election. "That would be the model. There would be adjustments and changes, but that would be the model," the official said. The agreement comes amid signs of warming ties following Arafat's death.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said he would like to meet with top Palestinian officials after the election and has offered to co-ordinate his planned withdrawal from Gaza with them. Interim Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has been negotiating with militant groups to end attacks on Israel and has pressured Palestinian media to stop disseminating anti-Israel propaganda.
Yesterday, the official Egyptian Middle East News Agency MENA reported Egypt had brokered terms of an Israel-Palestinian truce and principles of an accord for ending the overall Israeli-Palestinian conflict. MENA said Cairo would call for a July peace conference in Washington to include all parties to the agreement: Israel, the Palestinians, the United States and the European Union.
Both Israel and the Palestinians said talk of a deal was premature. But a senior official in Sharon's office said the report nonetheless contained "a few correct elements" whereby Israel would "respond positively" to a truce by militants and cease its own army operations in the West Bank and Gaza if calm prevailed.