Egypt has pressed Israel to pave the way for peace talks with Palestinians by meeting longstanding Palestinian demands on Jewish settlements and the barrier in the West Bank, the Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.
In advance of a meeting between Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian and Jordanian leaders in Egypt, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Israel should stop work on the settlements and on the barrier, remove checkpoints in the West Bank and end raids into Palestinian towns.
The Palestinian leader at the summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh will be President Mahmoud Abbas, whose position Egypt and Jordan want to strengthen by showing that he can make life better for West Bank Palestinians. Abbas and his Fatah movement have lost control of the Gaza Strip to the Islamist movement Hamas, which is not invited to the summit. Abbas refuses to deal with Hamas and Israel is trying to undermine the Islamist movement by depriving Gaza of anything but humanitarian assistance.
In a phone conversation with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Saturday evening, Aboul Gheit asked Israel to "act towards the Palestinian Authority in a way that achieves calm and creates the atmosphere for resuming the peace process", according to a ministry statement.
"This requires halting settlement operations, ending construction of the separation wall, stopping raids on cities and removing the checkpoints."
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