Giving the first details about a partial agreement to expand Palestinian rule in the West Bank, Israel's foreign minister said Friday Israel would remain in charge of security in rural areas.
Shimon Peres also said Palestinian prisoners would be released in three stages: the first group when a full agreement is signed, another on the eve of Palestinian elections and the third when talks on the final status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip begin next spring.The key sticking points are an Israeli troop redeployment in the tense West Bank town of Hebron, where 450 Jewish settlers live among 80,000 Palestinians, and how to divide the water between Israel and the Palestinians, Peres told Israel radio.
Earlier, the foreign minister and PLO chief Yasser Arafat announced they had achieved new guidelines for their delegates to fashion into an accord.
But at the end of the talks in Taba, Egypt, neither disclosed specifics of the deal. Peres said the substance of the document could not be revealed until he had reported to Israel's Cabinet.
"With this agreement, we didn't complete the work," Peres said. "But without this agreement, the committees wouldn't be able to continue to work."
Israel's hawkish opposition Likud Party collected enough signatures Friday to call parliament back from summer recess for a special debate on the partial agreement, which it called "an accord of surrender." The debate is to be held next week.
The basic dispute in the talks was between Israeli security demands and the Palestinian desire for dignity. Israel, which turned over the Gaza Strip and West Bank town of Jericho to Palestinian self-rule more than a year ago, wants to keep control of the rest of the West Bank until it is assured the Palestinians can impose security on radicals who oppose peace.
Asked about the prisoners, Peres said numbers weren't discussed. The criteria for release would be discussed later.
Arafat said that he hopes elections, originally expected in July 1994 under the peace accord signed a year earlier, can now be held in December.