Israel postpones West Bank withdrawals

An Israeli soldier checks the ID of a Palestinian woman while others wait to cross through a metal detector at the West Bank checkpoint of Kalandia yesterday. A planned withdrawal of Israeli troops from Jericho and Qalqilya was postponed late Sunday as talks between Israeli and Palestinian security officials over the transfer of security responsibility broke down. Photo: AFP

Elias Zananieri, spokesman for Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan, told AFP that talks to rubberstamp an Israeli pullback from Jericho and Qalqilya failed after Israel refused to dismantle a checkpoint outside of Qalqilya.

"The meeting ended without any result and without any timetable. There will be no withdrawal tomorrow or the day after," Zananieri said following the nearly four-hour meeting.

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"Israel said they would withdraw from Qalqilya but they want to maintain the checkpoint at the entrance to the city.

"We reject this completely. It goes against the agreement between Dahlan and (Israeli Defence Minister Shaul) Mofaz," he said, referring to a meeting between the two Friday when the withdrawals were agreed.

Despite the failure of the meeting, the two sides agreed to meet again Tuesday to continue talking, he said.

Israeli military sources confirmed the talks had ended "without reaching any conclusion" and said there would be no withdrawal from either town Monday as had been planned.

Instead, senior security officials from both sides would meet again "in a couple of days", the source said, without elaborating on why Sunday's talks had broken down.

Israel said Friday it would hand over four West Bank cities to Palestinian security control within the next two weeks -- Jericho and Qalqilya this week, followed by a withdrawal from Tulkarem and Ramallah, with the proviso that calm prevails.

Speaking a day after the meeting, Dahlan stressed the importance of removing army checkpoints from the West Bank.

"Any withdrawal must also involve lifting checkpoints from around the cities to guarantee free movement for all the people," he told reporters in Ramallah.

Mofaz said Sunday that the handover in Ramallah and Tulkarem "will be conditional on a resolution of the problem of the fugitives in each city," in a reference to wanted Palestinian militants.

He approved the transfers at Friday's meeting with Dahlan in a policy U-turn after previously saying no such move would take place.

Palestinian information minister Nabil Amr predicted earlier Sunday that the transfers could begin as early as Monday.

While Amr said the cabinet welcomed the pullbacks, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat charged the Israelis were trying to circumvent the US-backed roadmap for peace.