By Adam EntousPosted 2008/08/06 at 6:26 pm EDT
JERUSALEM, Aug. 6, 2008 (Reuters) — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed on Wednesday to the release of 120 to 150 Palestinian prisoners later this month as a gesture to President Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian officials said.
The meeting between the two leaders was the first since Olmert, dogged by a corruption scandal, threw U.S.-sponsored peace talks into turmoil by announcing that he would resign as prime minister once his centrist Kadima party chooses a new leader in September.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Abbas wanted the prisoner release, slated for August 25, to include long-serving inmates, women and children as well as political leaders, a reference to uprising leader Marwan Barghouthi, who is seen as a possible successor as president.
Israel declined to say how many of the 11,000 or so Palestinians in its custody would be released. Erekat said Israel agreed to release 120 to 150, and possibly more.
"In response to a request by Abu Mazen (Abbas),... the Israeli side will be releasing Palestinian prisoners towards the end of August as a sign of good faith and a confidence-building measure towards the Palestinians," Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev, said after the meeting at the prime minister's residence.
Israeli sources said releasing Barghouthi was an option but stressed that no decisions had been made.
The Hamas Islamist group, which controls the Gaza Strip, included Barghouthi, Hamas leaders and hundreds of other prisoners on its list of Palestinians it wants freed in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured by Gaza militants in a cross-border raid two years ago.
Some Israeli officials see the release of Barghouthi to Abbas as preferable to freeing him to Hamas as part of a deal over Shalit that Egypt is trying to help broker.
"I'm not talking about names," Regev said when asked if Barghouthi could be among those freed to Abbas.
STATEHOOD GOAL
Israel released 429 Palestinians as a gesture to Abbas after the resumption of peace negotiations in November at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland.
At their meeting on Wednesday, Olmert and Abbas discussed how to press ahead with the peace talks that had set a goal of reaching a Palestinian statehood agreement by the end of 2008.
It could take months for a new Kadima leader to form a new government, leaving Olmert in the role of caretaker prime minister. He has vowed to press ahead with talks with Abbas and indirect negotiations with Syria until he leaves office.
But with Olmert on his way out and rivals jockeying to replace him, few see much chance of a breakthrough before U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office in January.
"From a political standpoint, Olmert is looking for an honorable way to get off the stage,... trying to create an atmosphere that shows he did all he could," said Shmuel Sandler of the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies.
Gaza-based analyst Hani Habib said: "Talking about a Palestinian state now is like selling illusions to the people."
Abbas's authority has been undermined by the violent loss of the Gaza Strip to his Islamist rivals in Hamas.
Months of meetings, closely shepherded by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have produced little visible progress on key issues such as control of Jerusalem and the future of millions of Palestinian refugees.
The talks have been hampered by continuing violence, mainly in Gaza but also in the West Bank, and by continuing expansion of Jewish settlements in and around Jerusalem.
(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, and Ori Lewis, Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Joseph Nasr in Jerusalem; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Samia Nakhoul)
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