GAZA CITY, Aug 18: Hopes for a breakthrough in the Middle East peace process took a dive on Monday after talks between Israeli and Palestinian officials stalled on the handing over of security control in two West Bank cities.

A Palestinian official said the talks on the handover in Qalqilya and Jericho, which snagged late on Sunday over the issue of checkpoints, were likely to resume on Tuesday in occupied Al Quds.

“There will be a second meeting tomorrow to complete the negotiations and to hear an answer from the Israeli side and to have a new idea of removing the checkpoints,” General Rephey Arafat, head of the Palestinian team at the talks, said.

He said Israel had made “unacceptable” proposals to man 24-hour checkpoints on the edge of the towns.

“We don’t want the future of the Palestinian people to be controlled by the decisions of the Israeli soldiers who are at the checkpoints,” he added.

There had been expectations that the meeting between local security chiefs would see a mere rubberstamping of a decision that had been agreed to in principle by Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz and Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan.

An agreement would have led to the first such handover since Israeli troops pulled back from Bethlehem on July 2.

The Palestinians had argued that they were in no position to meet Israeli demands to crack down on militant groups in areas of the West Bank where they were not in control.

Mr Mofaz told his cabinet colleagues on Sunday the transfer of control in the two towns — and plans for a similar handover in Ramallah and Tulkarem — would put “the ball in the Palestinians’ court”.—AFP