Israeli Handover Of Palestinian Towns Delayed Over Roadblock Dispute

     AP     2003/08/18

An Israeli handover of two West Bank towns to Palestinian control has been postponed after the sides failed to agree on details of the transfer, Israeli and Palestinian defense officials said.

Talks on the handover of Jericho and Qalqiliya, expected to occur Tuesday, ended inconclusively late Sunday. A spokesman for Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan said the sides would resume talks Tuesday, and the Israeli military said they would reconvene "soon."

Dahlan spokesman Elias Zananiri said the Sunday meeting of senior security officials stalled over Israel's insistence that even after Palestinian security forces take over the towns, the Israeli army will retain roadblocks controlling movement in and out.

"The meeting between the two sides ended without agreeing on a timetable for the withdrawal from Palestinian cities because the Israeli side insisted on keeping the military roadblocks," he said. "The Israeli side has raised some security issues to justify keeping these roadblocks, which we believe will make the withdrawal cosmetic."

An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed that the meeting failed to produce an agreement, but did not give further details other than to describe the meeting as "businesslike" and say the two sides would reconvene soon.

Local Israeli and Palestinian had been scheduled to tour Jericho and Qalqiliya on Monday morning to make final preparations for the handover. But officials on both sides said those meetings had been put on hold.

Also Sunday, Palestinian gunmen opened fired at an Israeli car in the West Bank, lightly wounding a woman, the army said.

The Jericho and Qalqiliya handover was to have been followed next week by a withdrawal from the towns of Ramallah and Tulkarem, part of a deal reached last week by Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Dahlan.

It was not immediately clear if that transfer would now also be delayed.

As part of the agreement with Dahlan, Mofaz stopped insisting the Palestinians arrest militants on Israel's wanted list and settled for a promise by Dahlan that the wanted men be kept in check and not carry out attacks.

A Palestinian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Mofaz now agrees that the wanted men can remain in their towns and that the Palestinian Authority will be responsible for them.

The official said Israel promised not to arrest or kill suspects in areas under Palestinian control, provided they refrain from violence.

Troops never reoccupied Jericho during the past three years of fighting, and the only Israeli military presence is at checkpoints on the outskirts. Soldiers are also posted outside Qalqiliya, staging arrest raids from time to time.

Dozens of army roadblocks, set up after the outbreak of fighting nearly three years ago, have paralyzed Palestinian life in many areas and are one of the main points of friction.

"If the checkpoints are not removed, then this withdrawal means nothing," Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Amr said Sunday. "The withdrawals are about freedom of movement."

As part of the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan, Israeli soldiers pulled out of parts of the Gaza Strip and Bethlehem in the West Bank in July.

The plan requires a gradual Israeli withdrawal to positions held before the outbreak of fighting, and a Palestinian crackdown on militants. Dahlan has said he cannot clash with the militants, for fear of setting off internal fighting.

Mofaz said that Israel's demands for militant groups to be dismantled remain unchanged.

"We will not make any kind of concessions regarding our security," Mofaz said Sunday in a news conference with U.S. Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who is leading a visiting congressional delegation.

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