This week, Cairo was the scene of frenzied activity promoting diplomatic negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, reports Dina Ezzat Cairo was racing against time this week to both shore up the truce between Israel and the Palestinians which came into effect on Sunday and to lay the foundations for a firm political process between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel. "We are trying to get to the point where a resumption of negotiations becomes possible. We made progress but we cannot say we are there yet," Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul- Gheit told reporters yesterday following a meeting with Palestinian Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Haniyeh's visit to Cairo follows that made earlier in the week by Khaled Meshaal, head of the Political Bureau of Hamas. (see p.2) Speaking at the headquarters of the Arab League following a meeting with the League's Secretary-General Amr Moussa, Haniyeh re- affirmed the position stated earlier this week by Meshaal: Hamas is willing to negotiate a political settlement on the basis of an independent and viable Palestinian state established on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. It remains unclear whether Meshaal and Haniyeh were promoting a collective Palestinian position or that of Hamas. Yesterday disagreements between Hamas and the head of the PA over the composition of the national unity government were reported. Abul- Gheit has stressed that though the swearing in of a national unity government is a necessary prelude to the resumption of negotiations between Israel and the PA, its composition is far from being the only sticking point discussed in Cairo. If anything, concluding a prisoner swap deal is the more urgent task. Diplomatic sources in Cairo say Egypt is currently working with the Palestinians and Israelis on the final details and method of the exchange, the timing of the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit -- captured in the Gaza Strip last June -- and the parallel and subsequent release of several hundred Palestinian prisoners. Yesterday General Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman travelled to Israel where he met Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defence Minister Amir Peretz. "The question of the release of Gilad Shalit was addressed, but I will not make any further comment on this subject," said an Israeli spokesman following Suleiman's meeting with Peretz in Tel Aviv. Suleiman is believed to have travelled to Israel to discuss with the Israelis the outcome of his talks in Cairo with Meshaal and set a preliminary deadline for the prisoner exchange and the lifting of the siege imposed by Israel on the Palestinians since the election of the Hamas government. Haniyeh said yesterday he was optimistic about Suleiman's chances of success. Speaking to reporters outside the headquarters of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, he said he felt reassured the siege of the occupied territories would soon be lifted. "We agreed on a set of steps that will be taken in this regard," Haniyeh said, following his meeting with Abul-Gheit, before heading on foot to the nearby headquarters of the Arab League. Abul-Gheit told reporters that a meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Olmert was "necessary, and that once negotiations begin they should be conducted within a strictly-defined timeframe." Indicating that there was coordination between Cairo and Damascus on that matter, Abul-Gheit insisted that sufficient political momentum for the resumption of negotiations existed, and that not to seize the opportunity would be a great waste for all concerned parties. Earlier in the week, in Tampere, Finland, Arab, Israeli and European foreign ministers joined to call for negotiations to be resumed. Abul-Gheit and Moussa, who both attended the meeting, said there was a strong will among the Europeans to put the political process back on track. This, they said, had to be done in accordance with a clearly defined mechanism. (see p.8) Yesterday, at a joint press conference between Haniyeh and Moussa at the Arab League headquarters, Moussa warned that, despite "European keenness to move things forward, and the positive signals in Olmert's speech [by the grave of David Ben-Gurion at the Sde Boeker Kibbutz on Monday], we must be cautious not to fall in the same trap twice." Meanwhile, Moussa called on the US to move back to the position of "a semi-honest broker". He said that Hamas had shown great flexibility, praising what he described Hamas's political astuteness, and called on all other parties to reciprocate. Hamas, argued Haniyeh, was offering all concerned parties -- be they Arab or non-Arab -- an offer agreed upon by all Palestinians to establish a state on the 1967 borders. "We have always been told that we should help ensure stability and peace in the region, now we are offering a proposal to bring about this and it is up to those concerned parties to take this offer or leave it." Haniyeh said that in any future meeting between Olmert and Abbas, the Palestinian president will be negotiating on the basis of this Palestinian consensus. Both Haniyeh and Moussa insisted on a timeline, ceiling and end-objectives for any future negotiations. Haniyeh dismissed earlier press reports interpreting Meshaal's offer of a six-month limit to Palestinian patience as setting a rigid deadline for the end of the truce which came into effect earlier this week. "It's not really a matter of a six, eight or 12- month deadline," Haniyeh said. "More important is the issue of achieving an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital." Palestinian and Arab officials, including Abbas and Abul-Gheit, are expected to use US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's presence in Jordan today, to demand from Washington a firm commitment to reviving peace talks and rewriting parts of the roadmap to allow for a detailed plan of action that could end the present stalemate.
