'A positive first step'

The intra-Palestinian agreement on maintaining a temporary period of calm is a "positive first step," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in a phone conversation with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Thursday.

“The Palestinians reached a good agreement and there’s an open road to move forward,” Sharon said, but added that political negotiations could only be restarted if terror groups were dismantled and disarmed.

Earlier Thursday, Palestinian terror groups said they would agree to a temporary "period of calm" with Israel, despite hopes by Chairman Mahmoud Abbas for securing a long-term cease-fire that could have given him the green light to pose more demands from Israel.

Echoing a long-standing position, the factions, which included Hamas and Islamic Jihad, said they would adhere to such a truce with the Jewish State if Israel fulfills conditions such as stopping all military activity in the West Bank and Gaza and freeing all Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons.

The "calm" would be limited to a few weeks or months, terror group officials said at a meeting in Cairo, after three days of negotiations. Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who has mediated talks between Israel and the Palestinians, had hoped for a long-lasting truce.

Hamas poses conditions

Senior Hamas official Muhammed Nazal said the truce would expire at the end of 2005 and depended on “Israel’s withdrawal from Palestinian cities and freeing prisoners.” The group also said the new agreement did not mean the Palestinians had renounced their right to use armed resistance as a means to fight the occupation, "especially if the IDF will break the calm."

However, a Fatah official said the terminology was not important, adding: “The fact is that the factions understand that at this time they should maintain the calm."

Political sources in Jerusalem said Abbas faces a test of maintaining non-violence and noted a recent mortar bomb attack on a Jewish settlement in Gaza.

Abbas and Sharon declared at a summit in Egypt on Feb. 8 a cease-fire aimed at halting more than four years of bloodshed, but terror groups did not accept it. Islamic Jihad broke a short lull in major violence on Feb. 25 when one of its suicide bombers killed five Israelis in Tel Aviv.

The Palestinian leader needs assurances from the groups to stop attacks against Israelis, including Jewish settlers and soldiers, to justify his own demands of Israel, which includes Palestinian prisoner releases and army withdrawals from West Bank cities.

Israel has already released 500 Palestinian inmates and plans to release 400 more. About 7,500 Palestinians are imprisoned in Israeli jails and Israel says it would not release any with “blood on their hands,” or those involved in deadly attacks against Israelis.

The army also pulled out of the West Bank town of Jericho on Wednesday and plans to hand security control of four more Palestinian cities to Palestinian security forces under a series of gestures aimed at boosting peace efforts.