Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was quoted Monday as saying that the war with the Israelis was effectively over and that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was speaking "a different language" to the Palestinians.
In the interview published Monday in the New York Times, Abbas said "Sharon's vow to remove all settlements from the Gaza Strip and four in the West Bank despite strong pressure from the right-flank of his Likud party was a good sign to start with" on the path to a genuine peace.
Abbas said the war would be over "when the Israelis declare that they will comply with the agreement I made in Sharm el Sheikh, and today our comrades in Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they are committed to the truce, the cooling down of the whole situation, and I believe we will start a new era."
Describing his talks with Sharon during last week summit, Abbas said Sharon spoke "about the Palestinian independent democratic state" and "about the occupation, never to be an occupier anymore."
"So on all these things he was positive, but what we want to know is the implementation on the ground," Abbas told the Times.
Abbas' comments came as Israel began transferring the bodies of 15 Palestinian bombers to the Palestinian Authority on Monday. Ambulances carrying the bodies departed from the Institute for Forensic Medicine in southern Tel Aviv. The bodies are of bombers killed while carrying out attacks inside Israel.
