Palestinian, Israeli leaders to meet

JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will hold a long-delayed one-on-one meeting June 21, the two sides announced Wednesday.

The Israeli and Palestinian leaders have not met since a Feb. 8 summit in Egypt, where they declared a cease-fire that has sharply reduced the level of violence.

That landmark meeting, held under the auspices of Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan’s King Abdullah, raised hopes that the Israelis and Palestinians would soon embark on negotiations aimed at achieving a comprehensive peace accord.

Instead, both sides have signaled dissatisfaction with the pace and scope of one another’s conciliatory measures, and traded accusations of failure to live up to promises made at the February gathering.

Sharon and his top lieutenants have repeatedly accused Abbas of failing to disarm Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas. The Palestinians, in turn, have complained bitterly about Israel’s expansion of Jewish settlements, particularly a plan that appears aimed at linking the West Bank’s largest settlement, Maale Adumim, with Jerusalem. That proposal, in effect, would nearly divide the West Bank in two.

Israel also promised at the February summit to turn over five towns and cities to Palestinian security control. But so far only two of them, Jericho and Tulkarm, have been handed over. No date has been set by Israel for the turning over of the others: Kalkilya, Ramallah and Bethlehem.

The announcement of the planned Sharon-Abbas meeting came on the eve of Israel’s expected release of 400 Palestinian prisoners, as promised at the February summit. However, Palestinians have complained that the gesture is insufficient, saying more of the 8,000 prisoners in Israeli jails should be freed.