CAIRO - Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas will hold talks Saturday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Israel's planned pullout from the Gaza Strip, before meeting US President George W. Bush in Washington on May 26.
The two Arab leaders will meet in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh at a time when the Palestinian territories have seen a resurgence in violence and with Israel threatening to harden its riposte to any further militant activity.
"The aim of this meeting ... is to coordinate their positions and reach agreement with Egypt on the demands the Palestinians can put to Washington to break the paralysis" in the peace process, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said.
Abbas will be paying his first trip to Washington since being elected head of the Palestinian Authority in January. He succeeded the late Yasser Arafat, whom Bush had refused to meet and had declared persona non grata.
The Egyptian minister said he was concerned about "the current confrontations between Israelis and Palestinians" in what was a sensitive situation.
"The two sides must show restraint and ensure the situation is controlled so as to not allow a flare-up, which will only serve the interests of those -- on both sides -- who are trying to complicate matters," he added.
On Friday, the Israeli army killed a Hamas militant and wounded two others as they tried to infiltrate the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom in the south of the Gaza Strip.
Three separate militant groups, Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committee and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, claimed the attack in a joint statement.
Egypt has warned against the negative impact of Israeli equivocation in sticking to its commitments undertaken on February 8 at a meeting between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Cairo stressed that foot-dragging is threatening the informal truce agreed to by various Palestinian groups.
An Israeli official told AFP that Sharon had agreed to a series of goodwill gestures to help Abbas consolidate his authority.
Among them were the release of 400 Palestinian prisoners, agreement allowing for the return of a group of activists expelled to Europe in 2002, and a cut in the number of military checkpoints in the West Bank, said the official who asked not to be named.
05/20/2005 13:16 GMT