The prospects of a summit this week between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas looked bleak as negotiations Sunday aimed at finalising the agenda broke up without agreement.
After both leaders said there was no point in meeting without thorough preparations, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Arakat said his agenda-setting talks with Sharon advisor Dov Weisglass in Tel Aviv had failed to iron out all the differences and the two men would meet again Monday.
"We agreed on some points but there are some other points over which there are still differences," Arakat told AFP without giving further details. "We agreed to meet again tomorrow," he added by phone from Tel Aviv.
Sharon's camp had been expecting the summit to take place on Tuesday but the Israeli prime minister acknowledged that there could be a further postponement to talks which had been initially pencilled in for a week ago.
"It is important to hold talks, but we cannot attend the meeting without adequate preparation," he was quoted by Israeli media as telling the weekly cabinet meeting.
One of his close aides emphasised after the Erakat-Weisglass meeting that Sharon still wanted a summit to take place.
"I think both sides are serious about having this meeting take place but as the prime minister has said, if it is not just going to be a photo-op, we've got to prepare it well so we can have decisions and agreements," he told AFP.
Speaking to reporters late Saturday, Abbas said he did not want a summit which would "frustrate or disappoint the Palestinian or the Israeli public." "A meeting with Prime Minister Sharon should have content and not just be a mere public relations meeting," he said.
The meeting on Sunday followed preparatory talks on Friday about the summit in which the Palestinians want to raise their demands for Israel to hand over control of more West Bank cities and for the release of prisoners.
The Israeli side was in turn expected to push the Palestinians to do more to rein in militant groups in the wake of rocket attacks which have continued despite the historic pullout of soldiers from the Gaza Strip four weeks ago.
Israeli officials quoted by the top-selling Yediot Aharonot daily said they were not pinning any great hopes on the summit, adding that the main reason they had agreed to one was in order to placate US President George W. Bush.
"No one believes that Abu Mazen (Abbas) is going to begin fighting Hamas tomorrow morning," one official was quoted as saying. "Sharon is going to offer Abu Mazen a lot of carrots and eased restrictions - but on condition that he begins fighting terrorism."