Olmert and Abbas spar at meeting

JERUSALEM —  Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas wrangled Sunday for more than two hours over differences that have blocked a resumption of substantive peace talks, but they achieved little more than a pledge to keep meeting regularly.

Revisiting stalemates left over from their two previous meetings, in December and February, the leaders sparred inconclusively over cease-fire violations in the Gaza Strip, the capture of an Israeli soldier last June and Israel’s refusal to deal with the Hamas-dominated Palestinian Authority government, aides said.

They even quarreled over one of the few steps agreed to in previous meetings -- Israel’s belated release in February of $100 million in tax revenue collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. An Israeli official said Olmert complained that Abbas had used the money to pay government salaries rather than fund the medical and humanitarian needs for which it was earmarked.

“The meeting was very frank and very difficult,” said Mohammed Dahlan, a senior Abbas aide who attended the first 80 minutes of the session at Olmert’s office in Jerusalem. The two leaders then talked alone for an hour.

In the only concession announced by either side, Olmert pledged to ease economic restrictions on the Gaza Strip by keeping the Karni border crossing open longer for cargo trucks starting late this month.

The Israeli leader began this round of talks reluctantly, prodded by the Bush administration to try to revive peace negotiations that collapsed more than six years ago. Olmert has balked at discussing such key issues as borders, Jewish settlements and Palestinian refugees, even when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joined him and Abbas at talks last month in Jerusalem.

The talks have been complicated by Abbas’ decision last month to bring his Fatah faction into a power-sharing government with the militant movement Hamas, which Israel, the United States and the European Union label a terrorist organization.

Abbas has lobbied to have Israeli and international economic sanctions lifted as soon as the new unity government is formed. But Olmert told him Sunday that “Israel will not cooperate with any Palestinian government or any part of a Palestinian government” that clings to Hamas’ refusal to recognize the Jewish state, forswear violence and accept previous Arab-Israeli agreements, an Israeli official said.

Given that position, Palestinian officials said it was an achievement even to get Olmert to agree to keep meeting with Abbas and to hold some of their sessions in the West Bank.

“There is a commitment to keep channels of communication open,” said Saeb Erekat, an aide to Abbas. “We hope this will eventually revive the peace process.”

Toward that end, Abbas urged Olmert on Sunday to halt Israeli military operations in the West Bank, broadening an informal cease-fire in place in the Gaza Strip since November.

Olmert countered with conditions that must be met first: the unconditional release of Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit and a halt to weapons smuggling from Egypt into Gaza and the sporadic firing of Kassam rockets from Gaza into Israel.

Abbas told Olmert that he would make an effort to win the release of Shalit before the power-sharing government is seated in the coming weeks. The soldier has been held by Palestinian militants allied with Hamas.

The two leaders also discussed a 2002 Saudi peace initiative that is to be revived at an Arab League meeting this month.

The plan proposes normal relations between Arab nations and Israel in return for an Israeli withdrawal to borders pre-dating the 1967 Middle East War. It also calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state and a “just solution” to the issue of Palestinian refugees.

Olmert said before Sunday’s meeting that the Saudi initiative was “a plan that we are ready to address seriously” with Arab nations and that “it has positive elements.”

boudreaux@latimes.com

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Special correspondent Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.