Talks between Israel and the Palestinians resumed Thursday in an effort to overcome the final obstacles to an agreement for an Israeli troop redeployment in the West Bank town of Hebron.
After seven weeks of talks, the differences have boiled down to disagreements over Israel’s demand to have freedom of troop movement in Arab neighborhoods of Hebron that would be under Palestinian self-rule.
As happened often during the past weeks, each side accused the other for the delay.
Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat said Thursday that Israel was deliberately delaying implementation of the redeployment, which was called for in the Interim Agreement signed last year.
“Accurate and honest implementation of the agreement requires international effort to push the Israeli side to commit itself to what has been signed,” he said in the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Palestinians were well aware that they were the ones delaying implementation.
David Bar Illan told Israel Radio that the differences between the two sides’ positions were “very small.”
He did not rule out a Netanyahu-Arafat meeting to wrap up the accord, but he said that both sides were hesitant to schedule one unless they were “completely assured that it will be successful.”
Palestinian Authority official Yasser Abed Rabbo warned Thursday that failure to implement the accord could lead to a further deterioration of relations with Israel and a renewal of violence.
“The Israeli policy will bring us back to the age of total confrontation,” he told a news conference. “This policy will lead only to the destruction of all that was achieved between the two sides.”
The Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement saying that Rabbo’s remarks were not helpful to the ongoing dialogue.
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