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Arafat-Sharon Summit Unlikely As Palestinians Accuse Israel Of New "War"
JERUSALEM, March 11 (News Agencies) - Israel and the Palestinians on Sunday ruled out chances of an early summit as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon expressed dismay at the position of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, while the Palestinians said the Jewish state was turning their cities into "prisons."
Arafat's Palestinian Authority issued a call for urgent U.N. intervention, saying Israel was intensifying a punishing blockade on the territories, after the Israeli army sent in tanks to enforce a tightening of the cordon around the West Bank town of Ramallah.
A top aide to new Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon insisted there would be no summit with Arafat until the violence ceased, while a Palestinian official demanded first an end to Israel's "barbaric war."
"I do not see a meeting in the near future between Ariel Sharon as we are still waiting for a call from Yasser Arafat for an end to violence," said Uri Shani, director general of Sharon's office, repeating an oft-stated demand.
U.S. ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyck also called on Israelis and Palestinians to put an end to the violence, before restarting the peace process.
He urged Arafat to "curb the violence", but also asked Sharon's government to ease the blockade imposed on the Palestinians.
Sharon, who took power last week at the head of a unity government established to try to end the five and a half months of bloodletting, said he was dismayed Ararat failed to call for an end to the fighting in a speech to his parliament on Saturday.
"I'm really very sorry and disappointed yesterday when Arafat in his speech did not call for cessation of hostilities," Sharon said in an interview with the U.S. network Fox television.
The Palestinian presidency reacted to criticism of Arafat's speech by saying it proved Israel refuses peace.
"It seems the Israeli side has decided to refuse the hand Arafat extended ... to peace and security", secretary general of the Palestinian presidency Tayeb Abdelrahim said Sunday.
The hardline leader also condemned reported remarks by Arafat to Saudi newspaper Okas that the Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, would continue.
According to extracts of the interview published in the Palestinian media, Arafat told Okaz: "The Intifada will continue and Sharon's conditions are unacceptable."
However, top Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rudeina denied the Palestinian leader had given any such interview. "This is false, Arafat did not speak to this newspaper," he said.
On Saturday, Arafat urged Sharon to resume talks where they left off under the previous government of Ehud Barak in January, pleading for a "peace of the brave" that will establish a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said it was premature to talk about a summit before Israel ended its "barbaric war."
And Israel further tightened its choking blockade by sealing off a swathe of the West Bank, which prompted Palestinian calls for urgent U.N. intervention to stop Israel from turning Palestinian towns into "tightly sealed-off large prisons."
"The new Israeli government and its prime minister have officially launched a new war against the Palestinian people," Abed Rabbo said.
He said Israel had closed off Palestinian towns and villages, banned movement of goods and people and moved in heavy armor and tanks as part of a "100 days war" aimed at crushing the Palestinian revolt.
In a move affecting thousands of Palestinians, the army was preventing cars from traveling between Ramallah and Jerusalem, established a new checkpoint and erected makeshift roadblocks with piles of dirt and rocks on roads previously used by Palestinians to skirt the closure, sealing off dozens of villages, witnesses said.
Several people were wounded, including one woman, when Israeli soldiers fired against Palestinian protestors throwing stones at the roadblock where queues of people were waiting to cross, witnesses said.
The Palestinian Authority called for an urgent meeting of the U.N. Security Council on the closure, which it called an "escalation of war."
The blockade has cost the Palestinian economy upwards of one billion dollars according to U.N. figures and sent unemployment and poverty rates soaring.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres also said he was not ready to meet Arafat, but added: "At the end of the day, we must resume negotiations. We cannot live back to back with a pistol in hand - we must accept face-to-face dialogue."
Sharon is expected to outline his plans for peace at a meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington on March 20th.
He has already ruled out many of the compromises proposed by Barak, rejecting any division of Jerusalem, dismantling of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories and opposing any further withdrawals from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Sharon told the U.S. magazine Newsweek that he would not send the Israeli army back into areas under control of Arafat's authority.
"Areas that were given to the Palestinians - there, I think the situation is irreversible and I don't think we have to re-enter," Sharon said.
Sharon's arrival in power has been greeted by warnings of more attacks by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, which claimed a bombing in the northern Israeli resort of Netanya a week ago that killed three Israelis.
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