Mideast talks point to possible truce

JERUSALEM -- Israeli troops pulled out of biblical Bethlehem and a neighboring village early Tuesday, witnesses said, edging Israel and the Palestinians closer to a cease-fire in the 18-month-old Mideast conflict.\nThe pullback came during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, winding up a tour of the region that concentrated on the U.S.-led campaign against world terrorism. Concerned that Palestinian-Israeli violence would disrupt the effort, Cheney called on both sides to end their conflict.\nCheney joined the efforts of U.S. mediator Anthony Zinni, and the two Americans held talks Monday afternoon with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Cheney called on both sides to end their conflict.\nThe effort follows one of the bloodiest periods in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israelis are increasingly impatient for an end to the carnage, while the Palestinians have been suffering very heavy casualties and economic losses.\nLeaving Bethlehem, soldiers dismantled rooftop positions, made of sandbags. Armored personnel carriers and tanks then rumbled along the main roads of Bethlehem and Beit Jalla into Israeli-controlled territory.\nHowever, Israeli troops remained in the village of El-Khader, next to Bethlehem, and enforced a curfew in the Aida refugee camp adjacent to the West Bank town, traditional birthplace of Jesus.\nIn violence Monday, Israeli soldiers shot and killed an armed Palestinian near a crossing point between Gaza and Israel, the military said. Also, Palestinians fired two Qassam rockets into Israel from northern Gaza, the military said. Palestinians said Israel sent armored vehicles to search farms afterward.\nMeanwhile, Israeli soldiers tracked down and arrested two Palestinians who had infiltrated into northern Israel, planning to carry out a terror attack, the military said.\nIn the most promising sign since Zinni arrived last week, Israeli and Palestinian security officials met three times in less than 24 hours.\n"The meeting today was tough and serious, but positive," said Jibril Rajoub, the Palestinian security chief in the West Bank. "The Israelis are committed to withdrawing from all (Palestinian-run) areas in the West Bank."\nIsraeli forces have entered more than a half-dozen Palestinian towns and cities this month in a search for Palestinian militants. They have withdrawn from all the Palestinian population centers except Bethlehem and Beit Jalla, two adjacent West Bank towns just south of Jerusalem.\nIt was not clear whether Israeli troops would remain in a few Palestinian-run areas of the Gaza Strip -- a key road and some farmland -- which they also seized in recent months, and this was apparently not part of Monday's emerging deal.\nAn Israeli pullout would meet the most immediate Palestinian demand for reaching a cease-fire. However, any breakthrough could be swiftly undone by Palestinian attacks on Israelis, which could prompt Israeli retaliation.\nZinni, who has been shuttling between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, is trying to get the two sides to implement a cease-fire deal brokered last year by CIA chief George Tenet.\nBoth sides previously endorsed the plan, which calls on the Israelis to pull back troops to where they were before the fighting began in September 2000. The Palestinians must prevent attacks against Israel and -- in what may prove to be a huge undertaking -- collect weapons from militants.\nSeveral previous cease-fire efforts have failed, and even if the two sides strike a deal there's no guarantee it will hold.\nMany Palestinian militants say the only way they can win concessions from Israel is by fighting. And many Israelis believe Sharon should take an even tougher line and step up military operations against the Palestinians.\nBoth sides see Cheney's presence as an incentive to reach a truce deal.\nUpon arriving, Cheney met Sharon and said he was seeking to revive Israeli-Palestinian talks with an aim to reaching a full-blown peace treaty based on U.N. resolutions. The vice president said both sides would have to take steps to end violence and improve the atmosphere for peace talks.\n"We continue to call upon Chairman (Yasser) Arafat to live up to his commitment to renounce once and for all the use of violence as a political weapon and to observe a 100 percent effort to stamp out terrorists," Cheney said.\n"In that same spirit, I will be talking to Prime Minister Sharon about the steps that Israel can take to alleviate the devastating economic hardships being experienced by innocent Palestinian men, women and children," he added.\nSharon compared the U.S. campaign against international terrorism to Israel's battle against Palestinian attackers.\nThe Palestinians reject this analogy, saying they are resisting 35 years of Israeli military occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with the aim of establishing an independent Palestinian state.\nCheney has set aside time to meet with the Palestinian side, aides said, although no specific meetings have been scheduled. A meeting with Arafat was a possibility, a senior U.S. official said.\nPalestinian parliament speaker Ahmed Qureia said that unless Cheney meets with Arafat he would not be received by any other Palestinian official.\nAlso Monday, supporters of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization vowed to keep up attacks.\nAt a rally in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia, demonstrators chanted "Death to Israel. Death to America," and "No to surrender, yes to holy war."\n"Our fighters will terrorize our enemy everywhere by all means," one masked activist told the crowd of about 600.\nSince fighting erupted in September 2000, 1208 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 352 on the Israeli side.