By Xinhua,
Ramallah : Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would urge Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on their Sunday’s meeting to free more Palestinian prisoners, well-informed Palestinian sources said.
Following their last meeting held three weeks ago in Jerusalem, Israel has released 198 Palestinian prisoners on Aug. 25 as a goodwill gesture to strengthen Abbas’ Palestinian National Authority.
In addition to the request to release more prisoners, the question of Jerusalem and the deportees, who were deported by Israel in 2002 to the Gaza Strip, will be on the meeting’s agenda, the sources added.
According to Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, among those that Abbas would ask Olmert to release are Marwan al-Barghouti, a senior Fatah leader and speaker of the Legislative Council Aziz Dweik.
The sources said the Abbas-Olmert meeting will be decisive, in which basic issues in the negotiations will be discussed, such as Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees’ right of return.
Chiefs of the two negotiations teams, Ahmed Qurei and Tzipi Livni will attend the meeting to review the results of their negotiations over the past few months, the sources said.