Sharon, Abbas hold frosty summit in Jerusalem

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed at a summit yesterday to coordinate Israel's Gaza pull-out, but Palestinians described the talks as disappointing.

"We agreed during the meeting on full coordination of our departure from Gaza. A coordinated move will ensure a peaceful exit, something that is best for both sides," Mr Sharon said, echoing remarks US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made during a weekend visit.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie, who attended what officials described as a tense summit at Mr Sharon's Jerusalem residence, said, however: "It was a difficult meeting and it did not meet our expectations."

Mr Qurie told a news conference in the West Bank that Mr Sharon had failed to give any positive response to issues the Palestinians raised, citing the reopening of Gaza's airport and further releases of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Washington is counting on Israel's evacuation of all 21 settlements in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank to kick-start a US-backed international "road map" peace plan.

Mr Sharon, however, reaffirmed his bedrock position that no progress could be made towards peace unless the Palestinian Authority led by Mr Abbas cracked down on militants.

Addressing a hoteliers' convention, Mr Sharon complained the Palestinian Authority had taken "little action to prevent terror" and he threatened tough military action if gunmen tried to disrupt the pull-out set to begin in mid-August. In a gesture to Mr Abbas, Mr Sharon offered to pull back Israeli forces from Bethlehem and Qalqilya in the West Bank within two weeks but conditioned the move on a credible Palestinian plan to rein in militants there, the Israeli leader's spokesman said.

"We are still taking casualties," Mr Sharon complained to Mr Abbas in remarks picked up by a microphone that seemed to set the tone for the session, which lasted a little more than two hours.

The meeting was the first between an Israeli Prime Minister and a Palestinian president in the holy city at the heart of the Middle East conflict.

It was held a day after Palestinian gunmen killed a Jewish settler in the West Bank and Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian civilian in a restricted area in the Gaza Strip, incidents that further frayed a four-month-old ceasefire.

In a sign of impatience with Mr Abbas over his refusal to meet Israeli demands to disarm militants, Israeli forces detained dozens of Islamic Jihad men in the biggest West Bank raid since he and Sharon declared the truce at a February 8 summit in Egypt.

"We will not allow a situation whereby disengagement is carried out under fire," Mr Sharon said at the hotel convention. "We will not stop the disengagement - we will stop the terror."

Mr Abbas, whose January election to succeed the late Yasser Arafat revived peace hopes, says he wants to coopt gunmen into Palestinian security forces and their groups into mainstream politics rather than risk confrontation and possible civil war.

"I feel as though you are punishing us because there is terror, as though I am responsible for this terror, as though I carry it out," an Israeli official quoted Mr Abbas as telling Mr Sharon.

"You don't give me anything because there is terror and in that you are in essence hurting me. You make me weak."

Mr Abbas needs to show militants clear Israeli commitments to relieve Palestinians of burdens of occupation, such as roadblocks and sealed borders, in return for efforts to ensure the pull-out is not carried out under fire.

He also wants Israel to free more of the 8,000 Palestinians in its jails, including long-serving inmates. The issue, raised at the summit, is highly emotive for Palestinians.

A Palestinian official quoted Mr Sharon as telling Mr Abbas that Palestinian security forces must first act against militants before any negotiations on releasing prisoners. Israel has freed 900 prisoners since the truce was declared.

Just hours before the summit, Israeli soldiers took 52 Islamic Jihad militants into custody in the West Bank.

Islamic Jihad said attacks it has carried out against Israelis since the ceasefire were in response to recent Israeli raids in the West Bank against several of its men.