Israel, Palestinians OK Land Transfer

Israel and the Palestinians agreed Tuesday on the transfer of more West Bank land to Palestinian control, resolving a seven-week dispute and putting their negotiations on a final peace accord back on track, officials said.

Both sides expressed satisfaction with the deal and said the hand-over to the Palestinians of an additional 5% of West Bank land will begin today and be completed by Thursday.

The agreement also appeared likely to ease Palestinian concerns that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was halting progress on Palestinian peace talks while it conducts intensive negotiations with Syria that are now underway near Washington.

“This is a parallel track to the Syrian track,” Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said after Tuesday’s announcement. “It’s not a competitive track.”

The two sides also confirmed that another Israeli troop withdrawal, from slightly more than 6% of the West Bank, will take place as planned Jan. 20, the same day that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat is due to hold talks with President Clinton at the White House.

The transfers will fulfill commitments that the two sides made in September and mean that Arafat, at month’s end, will have full or partial control over about 40% of the West Bank. The resolution of the dispute is also expected to allow negotiators to make progress again toward their goal of reaching a framework peace agreement by mid-February.

Arafat and Barak have said they will try by then to come up with a blueprint for a comprehensive peace treaty that is intended to resolve all outstanding issues and put an end to the decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

The two sides have set an ambitious timetable for that agreement, saying they hope to reach it by Sept. 13. Among the topics still to be dealt with, however, are those at the very heart of their years of struggle: the issues of Palestinian refugees, Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, water rights and the future of Jerusalem.

Nonetheless, both sides were upbeat Tuesday.

The agreement is “satisfactory to both of us,” Israeli chief negotiator Oded Eran said at a joint news conference with Erekat.

Speaking to reporters in Gaza City, Arafat also welcomed the deal. “This is a step on the road to implementing what we had agreed in Sharm el Sheik,” he said, referring to the deal signed in September at the Egyptian resort.

Late Tuesday, military commanders from the two sides formally approved the maps for the hand-over, involving chunks of land scattered throughout the West Bank, from near Janin in the north to close to Hebron in the south. Some of the land will come under full Palestinian control, while other parcels, previously under full Israeli authority, will come under joint Israeli-Palestinian control.

The transfer had been scheduled for mid-November but was held up by a dispute over the parcels of territory involved. Arafat initially rejected the designated slivers of land, saying he wanted more populated areas that could also connect towns and villages already under Palestinian control.

The argument evolved into a question of principle: Israel insisted that it alone had the right to determine the areas to be turned over; the Palestinians argued that they too should play a role in drawing the maps.

On Tuesday, Israeli and Palestinian officials said the maps for this week’s transfer are unchanged from those originally offered, suggesting that a compromise may have been reached instead on land to be turned over in future withdrawals.

Erekat said the Palestinians were “very satisfied with the understandings” reached but said he could not elaborate on specifics of the deal. Israeli Cabinet Minister Haim Ramon said Israel agreed merely “to listen” to Palestinian concerns in discussing future withdrawals.