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Palestinians Make A Serious Start of Ceasefire: Peres
The Palestinians had made a "serious start" in carrying out a truce announced by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Saturday, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Tuesday in an interview with Israel's Army Radio.
But Peres cautioned that it may take several weeks before Israel could confirm the full effectiveness of the ceasefire and even the armistice is held, it could be up to five months before the two sides could resume their peace negotiations.
"You can congratulate us on the beginning, but not on the completion," Peres said.
He revealed that Israel hopes the ceasefire could last as long as eight weeks, after which the two sides could implement confidence-building measures and resume talks, while the Palestinians only want a four-week cooling-off period.
Arafat ordered the truce under great international pressure after a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up and killed 20 Israelis outside a Tel Aviv disco Friday night, the deadliest attack against Israel since 1997.
Since then, the two sides witnessed a relatively reduction of violence between them compared with the bloodshed during the past eight months, during which over 570 people have been killed, most of them Palestinians.
However, severe fights erupted between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip on Monday and there were also clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian demonstrators near the West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday, both of the violence causing injuries.
Peres was quoted as saying that Arafat also had "limitations. He has a high degree of control on the ground," Peres, "I don't know if he has absolute control. I don't think anyone knows."
Peres denied that even the two sides resume talks, the negotiations will be bases on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to hand over only 42 percent of the West Bank lands to the Palestinians, which was published during the prime ministerial election campaign between the hawkish Sharon and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
"There is no such decision by the government. According to the government guidelines, a comprehensive agreement will be based on (the U.N. Security Council resolutions) 242 and 338. We prefer that in the first stage of the negotiations, the implementation of existing agreements will be discussed," he told the Radio.
In a related development, Peres met Tuesday with Russian Middle East envoy Andrei Vdovin who was sent by Russian President Vladimir Putin to help calm the situation in the region.
After the talks, Peres said at a news conference that the international community should be coordinated against "terrorism" and in favor of the recommendations, published by the international fact-finding committee, on ending the Israeli-Palestinian violence.
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