JERUSALEM, Aug 29: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Monday that Israel would not hold onto all of its West Bank settlements, a week after overseeing the historic pullout of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip.
Sharon, in an interview with Channel 10 private television, said the final map of settlements that Israel would retain would not be presented until final status negotiations with the Palestinians.
But he added that it would not include all of the 130 enclaves which are dotted across the territory.
“Not all the communities that exist today in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) will stay,” he said.
“The final map will be presented towards the final stage of negotiations,” he said. “The large settlement blocs will be in our hands with security areas. This can only come in the last stages.”
Israel completed its evacuation of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and four small West Bank settlements last Tuesday, in the Jewish state’s first withdrawal from parts of the occupied territories.
Sharon has consistently denied any further evacuation plans, while arguing that the pullout from Gaza would enable Israel to cement its control over large West Bank settlement blocs.
Few observers believe Sharon will risk further endangering his standing with his main right-wing governing Likud party by embarking on any more unilateral pullouts, especially as he faces a potential leadership challenge from his arch-rival and former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
While Sharon’s Gaza pullout has been hugely divisive within Israel, it has won widespread praise from the international community which sees it as an opportunity to breathe life back into the moribund peace process.
As part of the renewed international drive to bring peace after five years of bloodshed, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana met Palestinian and Israeli leaders on Monday.
The top European diplomat’s tour coincided with a visit by Egypt’s intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, in Gaza to urge militant groups to continue adhering to a de facto truce agreement.
A suicide bombing in southern Israel on Sunday, apparently to avenge the killing of five Palestinians by Israeli troops last week, served as a sharp reminder of the scale of the task ahead.
After wrapping up meetings in Jerusalem with senior Israeli officials including Sharon, Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, Solana headed to Gaza City to meet Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas.
The European Union, along with the United States, United Nations and Russia, is one of the sponsors of the stalled roadmap which targets the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.
Shalom, who met Solana, said there could be no progress on the peace plan until the Palestinians moved against militant groups such as the perpetrators of Sunday’s attack in which two people were seriously wounded.
But after meeting Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei in Gaza City, Solana urged an immediate return to the blueprint.
“We have to get into the roadmap process, the sooner the better,” Solana told reporters.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat called on the roadmap’s sponsors to oblige Israel to respect its own commitments under the blueprint such as freezing settlement construction.
Suleiman’s visit is seen as crucial to efforts to persuade the likes of Jihad and its larger rival Hamas to refrain from attacks, especially in the run-up to the departure of the last Israeli troops from Gaza in mid-September.
He met Abbas as well as Jihad and Hamas leaders to discuss the continuation of an informal truce and Gaza border crossings after Israel leaves the territory.—AFP