Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razek Yehiyeh has presented Israel with a security plan aimed at ending the violence, including restoring civic order and taking control over the Palestinian security forces in the PA territories. His plan stresses the need for a change in the public atmosphere, with a campaign against violence, in order to fight "terror." He believes that force alone is not enough to defeat "terrorism." The details of Yehiyeh's plan are reported Monday in Haaretz daily.
Yehiyeh introduced the plan at the security meeting held on Saturday night in Tel Aviv between an Israeli team, led by Israel's Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and a PA team, lead by Minister Saeb Erekat. Yehiyeh's plan is similar to plans presented in the past, such as the Tenet plan and a Peres-Arafat plan worked out last year at the Dahaniyeh airport, though both were never implemented.
According to the Palestinian presentation, Israel will start withdrawing from PA cities and back to positions it held before the uprising on September 28, 2000, and will lift the closures and curfews. Palestinian forces, subordinate to the PA Interior Ministry will fill the vacuum created, in exchange for an Israeli guarantee not to target the security forces.
With the withdrawal, the Palestinians are ready to resume security coordination with Israel, along the lines drawn up in the Wye agreement, to confiscate illegal weapons, and to arrest those who break Palestinian law. In exchange, the PA wants Israel to free prisoners arrested during the conflict, cease attacking targets in the territories and end the assassination campaign against Palestinian activists. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
