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Israel Suspends Peace Talks With Palestinians After West Bank Slayings
JERUSALEM, Jan 23 (News Agencies) - Middle East peacemaking was thrown into turmoil Tuesday after Israel suspended negotiations with the Palestinians because of the kidnapping and murder of two Israelis in the West Bank.
"The prime minister [Ehud Barak] instructed the Israeli delegation in Taba to immediately return for consultations in Jerusalem," a statement from his office said, describing the killings as "horrendous."
"During those consultations there will be no contacts of any kind at the various levels [with the Palestinians]," the statement said.
The bodies of two Israeli civilians, initially said by a Palestinian official to be soldiers, were found shot dead near the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem.
Their deaths bring to 383 the number of people killed in a wave of bloodshed that has swept across the region for almost for months.
Israeli public television said two masked men had abducted and shot the two Tel Aviv restaurant owners after they left a restaurant in a village near Tulkarem along with an Arab Israeli who was now being questioned by Israel.
"The state of Israel, as in previous such murderous incidents, will apprehend the lowly murderers and exact punishment with the fullest severity," Barak's office said.
The killings have put on hold the marathon round of talks underway in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Taba since Sunday aimed at forging an elusive peace deal to end a half-century of Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority was swift to condemn the killings.
"Palestinian people, even if they feel rage at Israeli aggression which hurts Palestinians, condemn and reject any activities aimed at civilians on both sides, Israeli or Palestinian," a statement said, adding that the Authority would open inquiry into who was responsible.
Even before the talks were suspended, both sides had cast doubt on the prospects for an early peace deal, even though time is running out ahead of a February 6th election for prime minister that Barak is expected to lose to hardline opposition leader Ariel Sharon.
Also before the talks were suspended, the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, called in Gaza City for an end to the negotiations and for the Palestinian uprising to carry on.
Palestinian negotiators had earlier voiced concern that Barak's tough campaign stand on Jerusalem, the holy city at the heart of the conflict, could torpedo the talks, although progress had been made in some areas.
Opposing views over Jerusalem led to the failure of the Camp David summit last July, and Sharon's visit to a disputed holy site there on September 28th sparked the current wave of violence in the Palestinian territories.
Barak said during a campaign stop in Tel Aviv that the Old City of occupied east Jerusalem should remain under Israeli sovereignty, with shared control of day-to-day life in the area that houses shrines sacred to Christians, Jews and Muslims.
"If Barak insists on this position, the negotiations are bound to fail," senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told reporters in Taba.
"We totally reject these proposals, which are unacceptable and contrary to the fundamentals of the peace process and to the plan of [former U.S. President Bill] Clinton," he said.
The Clinton plan envisioned splitting sovereignty over the al-Aqsa mosque compound, known as Temple Mount to the Jews, and a site sacred to both Muslims and Jews.
It also envisioned Israeli sovereignty over Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem and Palestinian sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods.
Erakat said the Palestinians wanted the talks to result in implementing U.N. resolutions on Israel's pullout from occupied territory and the return of refugees who lost their homes when the Jewish state was created in 1948.
Barak has also publicly doubted chances for a deal although it is seen as his only chance of beating Sharon, who has vowed he will not be bound by any agreement if he becomes leader.
Israeli opinion polls Tuesday showed Sharon still holding a commanding lead over Barak but with up to a quarter of voters undecided.
Barak earlier reiterated Israel's "red lines" in a telephone conversation with new U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, as the administration of George W. Bush signaled it was content to remain on the sidelines of the new peace talks.
He spoke of Israel's "fierce resistance" to accepting the right of return for Palestinian refugees, the insistence that 80% of Jewish settlers in occupied territory remain under Israeli sovereignty, and his decision not to sign any document that would transfer sovereignty of the Temple Mount to the Palestinians.
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