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Palestinian militants agree to extended period of calm Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Palestinian Militants Agree to Extend Period of Calm
Reuters
Mar. 17, 2005 - Palestinian militant groups agreed on Thursday to extend a halt to attacks on Israel, a move welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a positive first step in peace efforts.
The militants said however Israel must meet Palestinian demands that it free prisoners and withdraw from West Bank towns. Sharon said the Palestinian militants must disarm.
The militants' agreement, reached in Egypt after 48 hours of talks, strengthens Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's hand as he tries to revive talks with the Jewish state on an independent Palestinian state, analysts said.
If the truce holds, Israel could more easily carry out its plan to pull its troops out of Gaza, but it could also come under more international pressure to make other gestures.
Sharon's office said in a statement the prime minister told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak by telephone: "The arrangement reached in Cairo is a positive first step."
A joint statement by the 13 groups said maintaining the current period of calm, agreed by Abbas and Sharon at a summit in Egypt on Feb. 8, was part of their program for 2005.
It did not set a specific time limit for the truce but the leader of the militant group Hamas said it could expire before the end of the year if Israel did not make reciprocal gestures.
"The calm will be until the end of 2005 and even during the year our commitment to the calm ... is linked to the enemy's commitment to the conditions required and Palestinian demands," Khaled Meshal of Hamas told reporters.
Hamas and the leadership of the second militant group, Islamic Jihad, have gone along with the informal ceasefire since February but had declined to endorse it formally.
In the talks this week, they held out for a detailed timetable for steps the Israelis should take, but eventually went along with the mainstream Fatah movement on vaguer wording.
The final statement from the talks said: "The attendees agreed to a program for the year 2005 based on commitment to maintain the current climate of calm in exchange for an Israeli commitment to stop all form of aggression against our land and the Palestinian people, wherever they might be, and the release of all prisoners and detainees."
CONCESSION TO MILITANTS
The reference to 2005 was added at the last minute as a concession to the militants, delegates said.
Abbas needs the truce to hold so he can persuade Israel to take steps to make life easier for ordinary Palestinians, such as removing checkpoints and improving economic conditions.
Other Palestinian demands include an end to Israeli settlement activity in occupied territory and to work on the barrier Israel is building through the West Bank.
Sharon noted the deal was an interim agreement and said progress in the peace process hinged on disarming the militants, a step Abbas has been reluctant to take for fear of conflict.
"The terrorist organizations cannot continue to exist as armed groups and certainly not as terrorist organizations," Sharon was quoted as saying, referring to the militants.
Abbas has tried to draw the militants into political action and away from military activities. Palestinians say the Israeli demands are designed to provoke civil war between Palestinians.
Egyptian analyst Abdel-Moneim Said, director of the al-Ahram Center in Cairo, said the ceasefire agreement opened a window of opportunity which could last months, but not years.
"(The truce) will promote the peace process, but this will depend on the Israelis. Any dismantling of Islamic Jihad or Hamas will mean a civil war," he told Reuters.
Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit of Egypt, which sponsored the talks, told reporters: "We need a number of months and perhaps until the end of the current year to reach the situation as it was on 28 September, 2000."
He was referring to the start of a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation. More than 4,000 people, mostly Palestinians, have been killed since then.
In deference to the views of militants, the final statement said the Palestinian people had the right to resist the Israeli occupation. Abbas himself favors non-violence.
It also offered militants the prospect of integration into a reactivated Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which for the past 40 years has been the monopoly of secular, leftist and nationalist groups.
Abbas aide Jibril Rajoub said it was now the turn of the international community to lean on Israel.
"We have declared today a total ceasefire and now we are asking the international community to put pressure on Israel so they will abide by their commitments.
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