Reuters JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert s top two deputies will hold talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday in the highest-level contact since Hamas swept to power in January, officials said. The meeting, at the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Egypt, will come on the eve of Olmert s first trip to the United States, where he hopes to win President George W. Bush s support for setting Israel s border in parts of the occupied West Bank. The office of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Friday that she and Vice Premier Shimon Peres would hold a 30-minute meeting with Abbas and senior aide Saeb Erekat at 08:00 GMT. Erekat, who announced the talks on Thursday, said they would center on reviving peace negotiations and freeing up Palestinian tax levies frozen by Israel after Hamas, an Islamist group sworn to destroying the Jewish state, won a January election. We will discuss ways of resuming the peace process, Erekat told Reuters. We will also focus on the seizure of our money. It s our money and they should release it as soon as possible. But Israeli diplomatic sources said Peres and Livni would limit the discussion to the Palestinian fiscal crisis, which has deepened with recent U.S.-led sanctions on the Hamas government. We want to do whatever we can to facilitate working solutions for the humanitarian problem, an Israeli source said. While praising Abbas for his pursuit of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Olmert has ruled out peace talks unless Hamas renounces violence and accepts coexistence. Arguing the absence of a Palestinian negotiating partner, Olmert wants to withdraw from parts of the occupied West Bank, abandoning some Jewish settlements and effectively annexing others in blocs behind a new, fortified Israeli border. Palestinians say Olmert s convergence plan will deny them a viable state and further boost Hamas and other militant groups that have spearheaded a more than 5-year-old revolt. Such sentiments could have serious ramifications for the already beleaguered U.S. policymaking in the region. Nahum Barnea, political correspondent for Israel s biggest newspaper Yediot Ahronoth, quoted U.S. officials as telling Olmert aides: The White House fears a negative reaction from Arab states to a unilateral Israeli move. The White House is afraid that your plan will be the end of Abu Mazen (Abbas). Olmert, who is to meet Bush on Tuesday, has sought to play down the finality of the West Bank plan. In a New York Times interview on Thursday, he denounced the Palestinian leadership as extremist and unyielding, but added: I don t believe that at any time in the future we will change things without talking to the Palestinians, without coordinating with the Palestinians, without checking with the Palestinians. In the interview, Olmert said there was no humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian Authority and called it for the time being total propaganda. But he said Israel was willing to help relieve pressure on the Palestinians by releasing some of the $220 million in frozen taxes to pay for medical services in the West Bank and Gaza. Additional reporting by Mohammed.
