Details of Palestinian - Israeli agreement

The Palestinian-Israeli agreement which is to be signed today night in Sharm el- Sheikh, will come into effect within a few days, but its implementation may be delayed to September 13 due to Jewish religious holidays.

According to the deal, Israel would pull out within a month from 7% of the West Bank from zone C to zone B and is to release 200 political prisoners. A joint committee will convene to discuss implementation of the third phase of redeployment. The committee's mission will last for four months.

The American Administration sent a message to leader Yasser Arafat including its opposition to the settlement policy in the Palestinian lands which obstruct the peace process, affirming the Palestinian rights and the objective of the peace process, i.e., the application of UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 and achieving progress in the peace process.

The message also affirms previous US guarantees to the Palestinians. Talks by US Secretary of State in the past couple of days focused on reaching an Israeli-Palestinian accord. Albright`s efforts reveal the continuation of the American role in sponsoring and propelling negotiations on the final status of realizing peace.

An Egyptian statement said the agreement separated the dues of the transitional phase from the final status talks, and the US committed itself to it. With regard to the declaration of the Palestinian state, a compromise between the Israeli request to end the talks in January 2001 and the Palestinian to conclude them by April 2000 was reached. The agreement stipulates that talks would end one year after the current talks resumption; by September 2000. Consequently, the Palestinian Authority could declare the state in September 2000 even if no agreement on the final status issues was reached.