Israeli PM dismisses chief truce negotiator

February 24, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert dismissed Israel’s top negotiator in Gaza truce talks for publicly criticizing his demand that Palestinian militants hand over a captured Israeli soldier before any deal is clinched, officials said Monday.

The move threatens to roil the talks just weeks before Olmert is succeeded by the hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu, who wants Gaza’s Hamas rulers toppled and likely would take a tougher line in the Egyptian-brokered truce negotiations.

A truce deal has implications beyond cementing the informal Jan. 18 cease-fire that ended Israel’s war on Hamas. Without it, there is little chance of advancing already troubled talks to reconcile feuding Palestinian factions.

Olmert abruptly announced last week that Israel would not reopen Gaza’s long-blockaded borders — the main Israeli concession sought by Hamas — unless Hamas-affiliated militants first freed Sgt. Gilad Schalit, who was seized in a June 2006 cross-border raid.

Amos Gilad, the fired negotiator, opposed linking the truce deal with Schalit and criticized Olmert’s strategy in an interview last week with the Israeli newspaper Maariv. After Gilad refused to apologize, Olmert gave him the boot, aides said Monday.

“Due to the inappropriate public criticism leveled by Mr. Gilad, he cannot continue as the prime minister’s envoy to any political negotiations,” Olmert’s office said in a statement.

Aides said the talks would not be affected. A longtime adviser to Olmert, Shalom Turgeman, will replace Gilad in the truce talks, while veteran negotiator Ofer Dekel will handle efforts to free Schalit, the aides said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.

There was no immediate reaction from Gilad or Egypt.

Hamas shrugged off the development, with spokesman Fawzi Barhoum saying Israel “never intended to reach any agreement or closure on a truce or a prisoner exchange.”

Hamas desperately wants Israel and Egypt to reopen Gaza’s borders, which were sealed after the Islamic group’s fighters violently seized control of the territory nearly two years ago. But it has rejected any linkage between a prisoner release and the truce negotiations.