Palestinians can't agree on cease-fire
Militant groups leave Qorei with little to negotiate
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Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, right, meets with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei on Sunday in Cairo.
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CAIRO, Egypt (CNN) -- Palestinian factions ended four days of exhaustive talks Sunday without agreeing on how to pursue a comprehensive cease-fire with Israel.
Held under Egyptian auspices in a secret location south of the capital, the talks produced only a news release that contained no mention of a cease-fire.
The talks were aimed at getting all Palestinian factions, especially Hamas and Islamic Jihad -- two Islamic fundamentalist groups that have claimed responsibility for most of the suicide bombings against Israelis -- to declare an end to such attacks.
The two groups, labeled terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department, indicated they were willing to end the attacks, but only if Israel halted what they called assassinations of militants, ended raids in Palestinian territory and released prisoners.
They refused a comprehensive cease-fire without such conditions, and they refused to empower Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei to negotiate with the Israelis on their behalf.
They also insisted on maintaining a distance from the "road map for peace," sponsored by the so-called Mideast Quartet -- the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.
The peace plan calls for steps on both sides to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict leading to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state by 2005.
Without a mandate to negotiate, Qorei is expected to have little to offer Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon the next time they meet, which leaves the Palestinian prime minister vulnerable.
He is now in the position of either trying to enforce a cease-fire by cracking down on Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which he has little power to do, or negotiating with the Israelis with very few cards in his hand.
'Like beating a dead horse'
A delegate for Fatah -- Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat's political faction -- said the talks were "like beating a dead horse. ... We've been talking for three days and haven't been able to come up with anything."
Hamas representative Mohamed Nazzal said Hamas, Islamic Jihad and three other Palestinian factions contended that they agreed in June to a comprehensive cease-fire, and that Israel rejected it by continuing its "aggression against the Palestinian people."
The unilateral cease-fire, which Israel did not join, crumbled in August after just seven weeks. Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Fatah's military offshoot, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, all took part.
At this point, Nazzal said, Hamas "will continue the armed struggle" in the form of "comprehensive resistance."
Delegates had stayed up until 3 a.m. (8 p.m. Saturday EST) hammering out the details of a draft document.
At one point they had agreed to halt attacks against Israelis in Israel proper, but not against Israeli settlers or soldiers in Palestinian areas such as East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank.
In Jerusalem, Dore Gold, the former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations who is now an adviser to Sharon, said the talks "sounded like a discussion between men about which Israelis you can kill and which Israelis you can't kill. Obviously, we can't give this our blessing."
"What we can give our blessing to is the vision in the road map, the specific call for an unconditional cease-fire, with security steps like dismantling the terrorist infrastructure," Gold said on CNN's "Late Edition."
Speaking in Washington on the same program, Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, who visited the Middle East and met with Qorei last week, called the announcement "a major blow."
"The real hope was that we could get some cease-fire agreement here," said Dodd, a member the Foreign Relations Committee.
Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, also a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, called for the Bush administration to focus more attention on the region.
"I'd like to see somebody, day to day, minute to minute, in that thing, right now, trying to bring it together," Hagel said on "Late Edition."
Comprehensive truce
Egyptian delegates had pressured the Palestinian factions to emerge from the meeting with an agreement that Cairo could present to the United States.
But Hamas representatives said the only way to liberate Palestinian territories from Israeli control was via some form of resistance.
Arafat's moderate Fatah faction wants a mutual, comprehensive truce with Israel on the condition that Israel halts raids and begins implementation of the road map.
In preparation for a planned meeting between the prime ministers, the head of Qorei's office, Hassan Abu Libdeh, met Sunday for two hours with his Israeli counterpart, Dov Weisglass, Sharon's office said.
The two sides agreed to meet again to coordinate the final details of the planned meeting.
Support for accord
The failure to achieve a cease-fire agreement came as observers and participants from a number of sides embraced the "Geneva accord" signed last week in Switzerland by a group of Israelis and Palestinians without the backing of their respective governments.
The unofficial document calls for the removal of most Israeli settlements, shared sovereignty over Jerusalem, a return to the geographical boundaries that existed before the 1967 war, the end to attacks by Palestinians against Israelis and a limited right of return for Palestinian refugees.
King Abdullah II of Jordan said he supported the document, calling it "fascinating."
"I think that any initiative that complements the peace process, that tries to move the process forward -- and the principles in the Geneva accord are actually in line with the road map -- I think it can only be a positive thing," he said on "Late Edition."
Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell applauded the Geneva effort.
"I welcome ideas from whatever source," he said. "It seems to me, the more people who talk about the prospect for peace, the better off we are."
On Sunday, Gold lambasted the document.
"There is only one source of authority in this country that can negotiate peace agreements with our neighbors or with representatives of our neighbors, and that's the elected government of Israel," he said.
The plan's principal architects -- former Palestinian Cabinet minister Yasser Abed Rabbo and former Israeli Cabinet minister Yossi Beilin -- challenged Gold's characterization of their efforts.
"First of all, we did not sign any agreement," Beilin said. "I think that we are patriots who are trying to save ourselves. This is more than legitimate."
Rabbo concurred: "We did not in any occasion say that we are officials. On the contrary, we said that the Geneva accord is just a model we are presenting to the governments to start negotiations to have peace."
CNN's Ben Wedeman and Sausan Ghosheh contributed to this story.
