Israeli-Palestinian Security Meeting Ends Without StatementTop Israeli and Palestinian security officials ended their three-hour security meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah Friday evening without issuing a statement, Israel Radio reported.However, both sides agreed to continue the security talks under the auspice of visiting U.S. Central Intelligence Agency chief George Tenet, who hopes the two sides could renew their security coordination to end the eight-month-old violence. The radio report quoted Israeli security sources as saying that the meeting took place in a "satisfactory atmosphere," but there were no immediate signs that the two sides could make progress. The sources said that during the meeting, Israel tried to pressure the Palestinians to arrest dozens of activists from the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Islamic Jihad (holy war) and bring a total end to the violence and incitement against Israel. The meeting was the first of its kind since Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat announced a truce last Saturday. Israeli General Security Service head Avi Dichter and other senior Israeli officials attended the meeting, while the Palestinian side was represented by Amin Hindi, head of Palestinian General Security Service, and Jibril Rajoub and Mohammed Dahlan, Preventive Security Forces chiefs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. So far, over 570 have been killed in the clashes, most of them Palestinians. But in the last week, the situation on the ground was relatively quiet due to the ceasefire. |
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