TEL AVIV, May 8: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon delivered a new blow to the troubled Middle East peace process on Sunday by deciding to put on hold an agreement to release 400 Palestinian prisoners. Palestinians reacted furiously to the move, saying it would only serve to undermine an ongoing truce, while Egypt also warned that it was likely to weaken the moderate Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas.

The 400 prisoners were due to have been released by Israel as part of an agreement reached with Abbas at a summit in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh three months ago. Five hundred low-level prisoners were released in the immediate aftermath but relations have since soured.

A spokesman in Sharon’s office said all other prisoners would remain behind bars until the Palestinians cracked down on militant groups such as the Islamist movement Hamas.

“The prime minister has decided not to release the detainees for the moment as Abu Mazen (Abbas) has not taken any action to decapitate the terrorism which is continuing,” he said.

“When the Palestinians start to respect the commitments they made at Sharm el-Sheikh we’ll do something, but not before.” Sharon was heavily criticized two years ago when his failure to release more than several hundred Palestinian prisoners was seen as having undermined Abbas’s tenure as prime minister, leading to his resignation.

The Israeli leader however told a meeting of his cabinet on Sunday that he was not prepared to bolster Abbas at the expense of security. “Everyone is asking me to strengthen Abu Mazen, but I say to them not for the price of Israeli citizens lives,” Sharon said.

“I would be very pleased if conditions would be created for the transfer of Palestinian towns to their security control, but the Palestinians are not fulfilling their obligations.” His government decided last week to freeze the transfer of security responsibility in parts of the West Bank for similar reasons.

As part of the agreements reached at Sharm el-Sheikh, responsibility for security was meant to be transferred from the Israeli army to the Palestinian Authority in five West Bank towns.

The transfer has happened so far in only two towns — Jericho and Tulkaram — with Israel claiming the Palestinians failed to keep their side of the deal by disarming militants who had been on the military’s wanted list.

Abbas is reluctant to implement a general crackdown for fear of sparking civil war and strengthening Hamas ahead of July’s legislative elections. He has managed to persuade the armed factions to call a ceasefire but Israel says Abbas’s security forces are not preventing truce violations.

The Palestinians said the decision to freeze the releases after suspending the security transfers was another illustration of Israel’s desire to wreck the progress made at the February summit.

“This decision is part of the Israeli obstacles to the implementation of the Sharm el-Sheikh understandings and will have a negative impact on the cooldown,” prisoner affairs minister Sufian Abu Zaydeh said, in reference to the truce.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said he had relayed his concerns to the four main players in the Middle East peace process — the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States — ahead of a planned meeting of the so-called quartet in Moscow on Monday.

The failure to go ahead with the releases and security transfers “threatens the positive atmosphere which had reigned in the aftermath of the summit”, he warned.

“We need to give the maximum support to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and to avoid practices and measures likely to undermine his efforts,” said Abul Gheit.

Abbas made the release of prisoners a key plank of his campaign to be elected Palestinian leader, telling supporters that “if Israel wants peace, then the prisoner issue must be settled.”—AFP