Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia says a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has failed to live up to expectations.
Mr. Qureia said he and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were expecting positive responses on some issues, and received none. Israel has not yet commented on Tuesday's Jerusalem talks.
Several journalists at the scene described the mini-summit as fraught with tension, and said there was no Sharon-Abbas handshake at the end of the more than two-hour meeting.
The talks were called to coordinate Israel's upcoming Gaza withdrawal. But sources said it was dominated by the recent spike in Israeli-Palestinian violence, and the overnight Israeli arrests of more than 50 suspected militants.
Afterwards Prime Minister Sharon's office said it will transfer control of the West Bank towns of Qalqilya and Bethlehem to the Palestinians in two weeks, if Palestinians present a plan to rein in militants there.
