Vice Premier Shimon Peres, speaking Tuesday amid reports of an imminent prisoner exchange deal for kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, said that once Shalit were freed, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would invite Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas for talks based on the road map peace plan.

Abbas said in remarks published on Tuesday morning that progress had been made toward a prisoner exchange deal for the eventual release of Shalit, kidnapped on June 25 in the course of a Palestinian attack on an Israeli border post outside the Gaza Strip.

In an interview with the Bahrain-based Bahrain-based Akhbar Al Halij newspaper, Abbas said that a possible deal would be based on an arrangement under which Egypt would accept Shalit as a "deposit," after which the number of Palestinians to be released in return for his freedom would be made public.

	Advertisement

Peres, asked if Olmert would soon invite Abbas for the first talks between the two leaders, Peres told Army Radio, "The moment that this matter is solved, the matter of our captive soldiers, and I hope it will be solved, that is what will happen."

According to Peres, the sides would "open negotiations on the basis of the road map. This is the only document that exists." The talks could take place, Peres said, as soon as Shalit comes home, and without connection to talks for the release of the two soldiers held by Hezbollah.

Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said the chairman had yet to be invited for a summit with Olmert. The two leaders have met only informally, at a conference in Jordan, since Olmert took power in May.

"We believe that any time Mr. Olmert is ready to meet, the meeting should be very well prepared, because what counts should
be the substance," Erekat said.

Officials of Hamas and of Hezbollah have said there would be no tie between efforts to forge a dead for Shalit, and parallel contacts for the release of IDF soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, abducted to Lebanon after a Hezbollah border raid on July 12.

Report: Shalit already in Egypt
The London-based Al Hayat newspaper reported Tuesday that Shalit may have been taken from the Gaza Strip to Egypt, Army Radio said.

The report, based on unnamed Arab sources, said that Shalit has been held in Cairo for some time, awaiting the results of negotiations for his release.

The radio said that Hamas military wing chief and bomb mastermind Mohammed Deif, who long headed Israel's most-wanted list in Gaza, is also in Cairo, under treatment for wounds suffered in an IAF assassination attempt.

According to the report, Egypt, which has taken a leading role in mediating Shalit's release, has proposed a three-phase prisoner exchange.

In the first phase, accompanying Shalit's transfer to Egypt, Israel would free 300 Palestinian prisoners. In the second, Shalit would be sent to Israel, and a second group of 300 jailed Palestinians would be released.
In a third phase, Israel would release 200 other prisoners by the end of the year, the report said.

But it was unclear, if the report were true, why Israel had not moved to free prisoners under the reported first phase.

Olmert: Shalit must be freed before swap
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that Shalit had to be returned before Palestinian prisoners could be freed. "I will not be involved in releasing prisoners until Gilad Shalit is returned to us," Olmert told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

"I said in the past, before the abduction, that in my talks with Abu Mazen [Abbas], I would want to release Palestinian prisoners to convey to everyone that whoever opposes terror and accepts the road map should be supported," Olmert said. "But now we are not interested in doing so under the pressure of Shalit's abduction."

The prime minister said he was personally monitoring the government's tireless efforts to secure the release of all three soldiers, and noted that the demand to free them was part of Resolution 1701, the United Nations resolution aimed at ending the Israel-Hezbollah war.

Hezbollah officials, meanwhile, were quoted as having told German intelligence chief Ernst Uhrlau Monday that Israel's blockade on Lebanon had to be lifted and IDF troops removed from Lebanon before the group could begin talks about exchanging the abducted soldiers for Lebanese prisoners.