Word: sharm
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Longtime observers of the Middle East could be forgiven for experiencing a moment of d?j? vu in the spectacle of Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas declaring an end to hostilities in an Arab Red Sea port on Tuesday. The Sharm el-Sheik summit repeated many of the themes echoed by the two men when they met 18 months ago at the Jordanian port of Aqaba, and the resulting truce, was, then as now, hailed as a new beginning. That deal collapsed within weeks, and many of the factors that contributed to its demise have not been fundamentally altered...
...Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will help open a fresh chapter in the long search for Middle East peace this week when he meets with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. But as usual, internal Palestinian politics played a key role in getting him there. Abbas agreed to go to Sharm el-Sheikh because he wants to show that he has Egypt's support in his effort to rein in the militants of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Shaken by Hamas' overwhelming victory in last month's municipal elections in the Gaza Strip...
Many in Fatah aren't happy about Abbas' trip to Sharm el-Sheikh, fearing it might actually hurt him in his fight against Hamas. "You need to put your own house in order first," says a Fatah chief. To do that, Abbas must deal with Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei, who refuses to cleanse the Cabinet of Yasser Arafat's cronies and opposes Abbas' pick for Interior Minister. Referring to the upcoming talks, Qurei told an aide last week, "I expect another Aqaba failure," likening the summit to one held in Jordan...
...international and regional consensus over Iraq during the past week, in securing European agreement to write off a substantial portion of Iraq's debt, and in opening frank discussions on managing the situation in Iraq with all of the neighbors, including Iran, at a summit hosted by Egypt in Sharm el-Sheikh...
...Translating the nominal consensus on Iraq recorded at Sharm el-Sheikh - support for the January elections, denunciation of terrorism - into the sort of active support that has made a relative success of a similar agreement (involving both the U.S. and Iran) on Afghanistan, however, will take time, and success may be linked with the Bush administration's handling of its two other regional priorities, Iran and Israel-Palestine...