The Washington-sponsored meeting was to have taken place in the Palestinian territories for the first time, mostly likely on Thursday in the West Bank city of Jericho.
Representatives of Mr. Abbas said he called off the meeting because the Israelis were not prepared to consider extending a proposed Gaza ceasefire to the occupied West Bank, or to discuss easing travel restrictions in the West Bank or releasing frozen Palestinian tax revenue, according to Reuters.
In March, Mr. Abbas and Mr. Olmert promised Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that they would meet every two weeks to discuss “a political horizon” for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement. They met only once, on April 15, before a fierce new round of intra-Palestinian fighting in Gaza segued into a new barrage of rockets from Gaza into Israel, joined by Hamas, which drew the Israeli military into a round of air strikes.
The Bush administration wants Mr. Olmert to make gestures that could strengthen Mr. Abbas’s secular Fatah faction in its power struggle with the more radical Islamists of Hamas, who won power in Palestinian elections in 2006. On Tuesday, Mr. Abbas warned that the Palestinians were on the brink of civil war.
Mr. Olmert is scheduled to visit Washington on June 19.
The simmering violence continued today. Israeli forces killed two Palestinians, including one in the West Bank, and Hamas fired mortar shells at an Israeli-run border crossing with Gaza, Reuters reported.
Mr. Abbas is trying to persuade Palestinian factions to halt the rocket fire from Gaza and work toward a new ceasefire with Israel that would include both Gaza and the West Bank. But Mr. Olmert would not agree to discuss extending a ceasefire to the West Bank.
Mr. Olmert also refused to discuss what are known as the final status issues — borders, refugees and the fate of Jerusalem — but only “a political horizon, meaning the composition of a future Palestinian state,” according to David Baker, a spokesman for Mr. Olmert.
That is not quite what Ms. Rice had in mind, according to American Jewish leaders who spoke to her recently. They said she wants to give the Palestinians a clear idea of an attractive future, so that political concessions will seem worth making to achieve it. They say she is using the metaphor of “a beautiful house” to describe what she wants Israel to offer the Palestinians.
Previous sessions between Mr. Abbas and Mr. Olmert were held in Jerusalem. A spokeswoman for Mr. Olmert has said that a meeting in Palestinian territory would be a “gesture of honor” from Israel, and show that “this is a partnership, not a patron-client relationship.”
Jericho, which would probably have been the location of the talks, has seen less violence than other West Bank cities, and is considered to be a place where Hamas has a weak presence.
Source : www.nytimes.com
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