Sharon and Abbas Agree on a Summit

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will hold their first meeting since Abbas’ election when they attend a summit next week as guests of Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak, the parties to the talks announced Wednesday.

The gathering is scheduled to take place Tuesday at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheik, and comes amid a thawing of relations between Israel and the Palestinians that has raised hopes for the resumption of formal peace negotiations.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II also is scheduled to attend the summit, which will be held a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits the region for separate meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials.

Representatives of Sharon and Abbas had been saying the two would soon meet ever since the latter was elected president of the Palestinian Authority on Jan. 9, succeeding the late Yasser Arafat.

Officials and commentators offered various explanations for why the first meeting would take place in the presence of others, including a belief that the nascent peace process might prove more durable if influential neighbors such as Jordan and Egypt were involved from the start.

Egypt has acted as a go- between in Abbas’ talks with Palestinian militant groups aimed at negotiating a halt in guerrilla attacks on Israelis.

Egypt also is expected to play an important security role in the Gaza Strip, with which it shares a border, if Israel goes ahead with a plan to withdraw troops and settlers from the seaside territory this year.

Although the militants have made no formal announcement of a cease-fire, they have, for the most part, ceased their assaults on Israelis during the last two weeks. Israel in turn has sharply scaled back its military operations in the occupied territories. Both sides, however, continue to warn that the calm remains fragile.

Israel and the Palestinians harbor serious differences on issues that are expected to come up for discussion when the leaders meet.

Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres, however, said the move to hold a larger gathering did not reflect fear that a meeting between Sharon and Abbas alone would have yielded insufficient results.

“I am very satisfied with such a summit, with four of the important leaders,” Peres told Israel Radio.

“I assume that it is being held not to quarrel but rather to reach agreements -- agreements that are broader and richer are better.”

Speaking to reporters, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Korei expressed hope that the presence of the Egyptians and Jordanians would “force Israel to take the meeting seriously.”

Korei and other Palestinian officials said they wanted the meeting to yield steps such as a large-scale release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails and a speedy pullback of Israeli troops from West Bank towns.

Word of the planned gathering came after a rare meeting between Sharon and Egypt’s intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, who hours earlier had held talks in Cairo with Khaled Meshaal of the militant group Hamas. Sharon accepted the summit invitation after Suleiman informed him of progress in cease-fire talks with the militants, a senior Israeli official said on condition of anonymity.

The Israeli prime minister’s security cabinet of military and policy advisors was to discuss the summit agenda today. Israeli media reported that the group also would weigh a temporary halt to Israel’s hunt for Palestinian fugitives.

The aggressive pursuit of Palestinian militants, either by arresting them or assassinating them, has been a cornerstone of Israeli military policy during the current Palestinian intifada, or uprising, which has entered its fifth year.

“We are not talking about granting clemency, but a freeze,” Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli defense official, told Army Radio.

“A freeze means that everything is temporary.... If they resume terror, then we will resume vigorous action.”

The Israelis and Palestinians intend to set up a joint panel to discuss which fugitives will be taken off the wanted list, Israeli officials said, but the Palestinians are seeking a broader amnesty.

Over the last week, Israel has praised the Palestinian administration’s efforts to quell attacks on Jewish settlements and Israeli soldiers in Gaza by deploying thousands of paramilitary troops in volatile areas.

Also Wednesday, Palestinian security forces destroyed a tunnel running beneath Gaza’s border with Egypt. Such passageways are typically used by militants to smuggle weapons into the seaside strip, Israeli officials say.

Israel has launched repeated large-scale military raids in the last four years to destroy tunnels, leveling hundreds of Palestinian homes in the process. Some Israeli officials had expressed doubt as to whether Palestinians and Egyptians would act forcefully against the smugglers.