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Last Updated: Mar 26th, 2008 - 19:04:48 |
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's defense minister said on Wednesday he has agreed to the transfer of new vehicles and equipment to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's security forces and to ease travel restrictions for West Bank businesses.
But Ehud Barak, who plans to meet Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad later on Wednesday, has balked at removing checkpoints and roadblocks that restrict travel and trade within the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian and Western demand.
"What we need is a major change in the system and not cosmetics," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said.
Israel hopes the measures, announced ahead of a weekend visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, will help blunt U.S. complaints it was not doing enough to bolster U.S.-backed peace talks and a Palestinian "law and order" campaign in the West Bank.
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, launched at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland last November with the goal of reaching a statehood agreement before President George W. Bush leaves office next January, have shown little sign of progress.
"The list of steps we intend to take to make life easier for the Palestinians, without relinquishing our overriding security responsibility, is important in moving the negotiations forward and maintaining a positive atmosphere," Barak told reporters.
He said the roster included equipment for Abbas's forces, including his elite Presidential Guard, and new vehicles, some of them armored. Previous shipments of equipment for Abbas's forces have been supplied by European and Arab donors.
Barak's office said more details would be given after his meeting with Fayyad.
OLMERT VOICES DOUBT
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in separate remarks, made clear his government harbors doubts about whether Abbas's security forces would be willing and able to fight militants.
"The fact that there were very few or almost no terrorist events ... is not because of the security forces of the Palestinians, it is because of the efficiency of the security forces of Israel," Olmert told foreign reporters in English.
Barak said he also agreed to give special permission to a larger number of Palestinian business owners and project managers to travel across the West Bank.
Ramiro Cibrian-Uzal, the EU ambassador to Israel, said he was informed by Israeli authorities that some 1,500 Palestinian business owners would get the special travel permits, and called it a "firmer commitment" by Israel to boost the peace process.
An Israeli official said some 1,000 Palestinians already had the special permits.
Israel said earlier this week that it would also allow up to 600 members of a Palestinian security force trained in Jordan under a U.S. program to be deployed in the West Bank city of Jenin, once considered a hotbed of militant activity.
The force will not complete training before the end of May.
Israel has been under increasing U.S. pressure to take steps to bolster Abbas, whose authority has been restricted to the occupied West Bank since Hamas Islamists routed his more secular Fatah forces and seized control of the Gaza Strip in June.
But Barak has stopped short of promising to remove checkpoints, arguing they help to prevent attacks by militants. Palestinians say the roadblocks amount to collective punishment.
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