GAZA CITY, Gaza, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said Saturday that any renewed peace talks with Israel must pick up where they left off early this year.
Arafat said the most important thing is to resume negotiations according to the signed agreements. He spoke to reporters on his return from Spain, where he briefly met Friday with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
"First of all, the talks must be restarted and be based on what we had reached during the last talks in Taba in January this year," said Arafat.
The talks were handling final status issues related to Jerusalem, Palestinian return of refugees and the borders of the Palestinian state.
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks stopped after Ariel Sharon, the leader of Israel's right-wing Likud party, defeated in Israeli elections the then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who led the Labor Party.
Since Sharon was sworn in as Israel's prime minister, he has insisted that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza must stop violence against Israel before resuming any kind of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.
However, Arafat and Peres met several times trying to bridge the gap between both sides' views on implementing a cease-fire and resuming the peace negotiations.
"My meeting with Peres (in Spain) was just a protocol and nothing happened," Arafat said Saturday. "We were going there not to meet and talk, (but) rather to attend the economical conference in Spain."
Peres, who returned to Israel on Saturday, confirmed that there were no negotiations in Spain.
"I was careful not to conduct negotiations because they have to be prepared very carefully," Peres said. He maintained that the failed negotiations would cause disappointment.
An aide to the Israeli foreign minister told United Press International that the two had lunch together with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar, and a five-minute meeting "to coordinate their speeches."
Arafat criticized Sharon for not withdrawing immediately from six West Bank towns that Israel had entered after the Oct. 17 assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavaam Zeevi.
"He (Sharon) makes the first agreement eat the second agreement. Sharon agreed with the envoys of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the U.N. to completely and at once pull his troops out from these towns," said the Palestinian leader.
(With reporting by Joshua Brilliant in Tel Aviv, Israel)
