Israel, Palestinians Agree on Transfer of Civilian Power : Mideast: Delegates at Egypt talks report progress--but no breakthrough--on difficult security issues.

Israel has agreed on the transfer of most civilian government functions to a new Palestinian self-governing authority, and negotiators made progress on some of the most difficult issues blocking an agreement on Palestinian autonomy, delegates said Tuesday.

“I hope we’ll be able to really consider it a milestone that has been accomplished on the way to doing this agreement,” chief Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath said of the agreements now covering almost every aspect of civilian administration in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip; the areas have been in the Israelis’ hands since 1967.

Meeting for the second day in this Egyptian Red Sea resort, negotiators tried to go beyond the crucial security issues that for months have stymied agreement on Palestinian autonomy. Instead, they sped their way through other nagging issues--from economics to who controls the telephones--that have also remained in dispute.

After a long, closed meeting between Shaath and Israeli delegation chief Amnon Shahak, Palestinian negotiators said they expected to reach agreement this week on 37 of 38 areas of civil administration in Jericho and Gaza, which will pass into Palestinian hands for a five-year period of autonomy once an agreement is concluded.

Reaching full agreement on electricity, telephones, transportation and population registration, negotiators will have only planning and zoning issues to discuss next week, Shaath said.

“We were able today to move very rapidly and I think very positively in most of the departments that used to have difficulty in the transfer of authority to the Palestinian side,” he said. “So I hope we will be able to write the document on the civil issues and the transfer of authority before the end of the week.”

Negotiators from both sides denied reports they had reached agreement on the difficult security issues of the size of the Jericho enclave and control of international border crossings; delegation sources did report progress on both issues.

The Palestinian side clearly has dropped its demand for a large enclave around the city of Jericho. But the two sides are still disputing key areas that the Palestinians insist on including outside the city, among them several religious sites and an access to the Dead Sea.

“Have we finally settled on what we have been offered by the Israeli side? I say we have not made that agreement, but we have really not gone back to zero point. On the contrary, I think we have made use of the progress that happened (in earlier talks) in Cairo, but we are not yet satisfied,” Shaath said.

Likewise, on the issue of international border crossings, Shaath said the two sides “made progress, but we are still short of a sign-able agreement.”

The Palestinians appear to have accepted the idea of Israeli-Palestinian monitors of West Bank residents entering the autonomous areas but are still disputing control of roads from the border crossings to Gaza and Jericho.

“Some of the issues we are in full agreement, some in partial agreement, some are totally un-agreed. It’s going to take a long time,” Israeli delegation spokesman Ami Gluska said. He said the issue of what area around Jericho will fall to Palestinian control “is right now at a point where we do not exactly see eye to eye.”

The issues of Jericho and border crossings have bedeviled the talks since they opened in mid-October. Shaath said the two sides are moving on to other issues to keep things going toward an agreement until security issues can be resolved. A subcommittee on security met throughout the past two days on the issues and was scheduled to resume its talks this morning.

Meantime, the subcommittee on civil administration is scheduled to take on the potentially difficult issues of water and archeology later this week; a third subcommittee today will begin looking at legal issues, including specific powers of the Palestinian self-governing authority that is to assume power once the Israelis withdraw.