by Hassen Zenati
CAIRO - Palestinian factions were to start marathon five-day talks in Cairo on Tuesday on whether to agree to a formal ceasefire, with the outcome of the meeting crucial to the future of the re-emerging peace process.
"An agreement between Palestinian factions to observe a long-term truce (with Israel) will be discussed during the Cairo dialogue," Palestinian youth and sports minister Sakher Bseisso told AFP.
Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, who is to attend the Cairo talks Tuesday, said last week that he expected the armed factions to agree to a ceasefire at the meeting, which had been delayed by a Palestinian suicide bombing.
But Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Monday a ceasefire agreement with the factions was not enough and that Abbas needed to dismantle the radical groups in the Palestinian camp.
"A ceasefire being discussed by the Palestinians will not advance the war on terrorism and is not the solution," he said during a meeting in Jerusalem with Dutch Prime Minister Jan Pieter Balkenende, Israeli radio reported.
"The more Abu Mazen (Abbas) delays the dismantling of the terrorist organisations, the more trouble he will have doing it in the future," he said.
Hamas, the largest radical group, has respected an unofficial cooling down period after Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority in January following the death of the late Yasser Arafat.
It also sparked optimism by ending a long-standing boycott of mainstream political life on Saturday and announcing that it intended to field candidates in the July legislative polls in the occupied Palestinian territories.
But officials of Abbas's mainstream Fatah party already gathered in the Egyptian capital told AFP they were "pessimistic" about the talks' outcome.
They cited a hardening stance of Hamas, which has warned it would not observe an indefinite truce without Israeli concessions.
The Islamist group insists on the liberation of more than 7,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and the complete cessation of so-called targeted assassinations of militants by Israeli forces.
Following a landmark February 8 summit in Egypt, at which Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared a truce, Israel freed 500 prisoners as part of a series of goodwill gestures.
But the release of a second batch of 400 detainees was postponed after last month's deadly suicide attack in Tel Aviv late claimed by Hamas's smaller rival, Islamic Jihad.
The Cairo talks, originally scheduled for the beginning of March, were also delayed as a result of the bombing.
Talks to transfer security of five West Bank towns back to the Palestinian Authority -- promised by Sharon in Egypt -- have also since run aground.
Abbas, who has long called for an end to armed violence against Israel, expressed hope last week that militant factions would agree to a ceasefire.
"There are no radical differences and the Cairo dialogue should expect to crown efforts that are under way with the declaration of an agreement," he said.
UN chief Kofi Annan, who met with Abbas on Monday on his first visit to the region in four years, was upbeat about the prospects for peace.
"I think that the possible developments give us a chance to re-energize the process and work to ensure that the day a Palestinian state will be established living side by side with Israel will not be too long" in the future, he said.
Abbas, hailed by the international community as a suitable peace partner for Israel in contrast to his predecessor, did manage to clinch a ceasefire deal with militant groups in June 2003 when he briefly served as prime minister.
But the truce held for a mere seven weeks before it broke down when violence resumed on both sides.

03/14/2005 20:52 GMT