Encouraged by recent attempts to crack down on militant groups, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday came to this West Bank city to press the Palestinians to take further steps to rein in the violent groups.
Rice was in the region in a hastily arranged trip to try and rescue a shaky Mideast truce amid an escalation of violence, determined that Israel's withdrawal in the middle of next month from the Gaza Strip go ahead as planned.
Rice met with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, together with several Palestinian Cabinet ministers, at the start of a daylong series of talks.
Later she was to meet President Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Interior Minister Nasser Yousef -- who is responsible for the Palestinian security forces -- amid signs the Palestinians were buckling under heavy Israeli and US pressure to clamp down on groups like Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.
Palestinian security forces and gunmen loosely affiliated with Abbas' ruling Fatah Party clashed twice in recent days with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. The clashes came as Israel massed thousands of troops on the Gaza border, threatening to invade unless the Palestinians stopped militants from firing rockets and mortars at Jewish settlements and nearby Israeli towns.
"Rice demanded more Palestinian efforts to consolidate the truce," said Palestinian Planning Minister Ghassan Khatib, who attended the meeting. Israel and the Palestinians declared an end to the more-than four years of violence at a February summit in Egypt.
Earlier, Rice welcomed the actions of the Palestinian police.
"The Palestinians have begun to act," she said. "I would just encourage them in that work because I am quite certain that Palestinians mothers and fathers and grandparents want a world in which their children can live in peace and prosperity just as Israeli parents and grandparents want the same for their children."
Rice's meetings with the Palestinians also focused on encouraging coordination between Israel and the Palestinians during the planned pullout, where Israel will leave all 21 Gaza Settlements and four more in the West Bank.
Both sides want the pullout to proceed quietly but fear it could quickly deteriorate into bloodshed if the militants attack Israeli troops engaged in evacuating the settlers.
According to Khatib, Qureia briefed Rice on Palestinian preparations for taking over Gaza after the withdrawal, but said they were being hampered by Israeli refusal to change entry regulations into the coastal strip.
There are still 13 issue the Palestinians want agreed on before the Israeli withdrawal, said Diana Buttu, an adviser to Abbas, including a passage route linking Gaza to the West Bank, the opening of Gaza's port and airport and control of border crossings into Gaza.
Israel is reluctant to relinquish control over these facilities, fearing that without Israeli supervision militants would smuggle arms into Gaza.
Qureia also asked Rice to pressure Israel to halt settlement expansion in the West Bank, Khatib said.
On Friday Rice met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at his ranch in the Negev desert.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS