BERLIN - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in an interview with a German newspaper published on Thursday that his government wanted to see a Gaza Strip with open borders.
Sharon also told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that he backed the construction of a port and an airport in the Gaza Strip.
"Israel wants to be completely absolved of responsibility for the Gaza Strip," Sharon said, referring to plans to recall 8,000 Jewish settlers from Gaza and several hundred from four northern West Bank enclaves later this year.
"But in order to do that, and to help the Palestinians, the outer borders must remain open.
"We have basically no interest in having our forces attached to the area, which is why we also eventually want to leave the Philadelphi Route (Israel's security buffer between Gaza and Egypt).
"However, we can only pull out of the Philadelphi Route if Egypt is active and operates deeper in the Sinai to stop the risk of terrorism earlier."
Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz began talks in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Thursday focusing on security on the Egypt-Gaza border once Israel pulls out of the Palestinian territory.
The discussions are being held some three months before Israel is due to start evacuating Gaza.
Sharon reiterated that he had given the Palestinian leadership the go-ahead last month to build a port in Gaza. "That also holds for an airport," he said.
He said that while the construction of the port could take up to five years, the airport could open much sooner.
An international airport in Gaza had opened to commercial traffic in 1998, but its runway was torn apart by Israeli bulldozers and its installations destroyed following the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000.
03/10/2005 13:31 GMT