Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in excerpts of an interview published this morning that he has agreed to meet a leading Palestinian official, his first such talks in months during nearly two years of conflict.
The daily Yedioth Ahronothquoted Sharon as saying he had given his consent to meet an unnamed Palestinian official after the official contacted him to propose a "renewal of dialogue."
"I agreed to meet with a top Palestinian personality," Sharon was quoted as telling Yedioth Ahronoth in excerpts from an interview to be published in full later in the week.
A senior political source confirmed Sharon told his interviewer he had agreed to talks with a "political leader" but had declined to name the Palestinian whom he planned to meet. The official would not elaborate on the nature and timing of the talks.
Sharon has said he would limit any talks to security issues until the Palestinians reined in militants behind attacks on Israelis and implemented sweeping institutional reforms. He has declared Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat "irrelevant" and ruled out talks with him.
But Sharon met several top Palestinian officials in January. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has held similar talks, and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer met Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razzak al-Yahya last month.
Sharon said in the interview he believed many Palestinians have concluded they have achieved nothing from violence.
"Their hope that we would be broken has failed," he was quoted as saying. "Israeli society has withstood terrible tests of terror and has not been broken."
"Yet among Palestinians, cracks are opening which stem from their understanding that they will not break us," Sharon told the newspaper.