JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will hold their first meeting since Abbas' election when they attend a summit next week as guests of Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, the parties to the talks announced Wednesday.
The gathering is scheduled to take place Tuesday at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheik, and comes amid a thawing of relations between Israel and the Palestinians that has raised hopes for the resumption of formal peace negotiations.
Jordan's King Abdullah II also is scheduled to attend the summit, which will be held a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits the region for separate meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials.
Representatives of Sharon and Abbas had been saying the two would soon meet ever since the latter was elected president of the Palestinian Authority on Jan. 9, succeeding the late Yasser Arafat.
Officials and commentators offered various explanations for why the first meeting would take place in the presence of others, including a belief that the nascent peace process might prove more durable if influential neighbors such as Jordan and Egypt were involved from the start.
Egypt has acted as a go- between in Abbas' talks with Palestinian militant groups aimed at negotiating a halt in guerrilla attacks on Israelis.
Egypt also is expected to play an important security role in the Gaza Strip, with which it shares a border, if Israel goes ahead with a plan to withdraw troops and settlers from the seaside territory this year.
Although the militants have made no formal announcement of a cease-fire, they have, for the most part, ceased their assaults on Israelis during the last two weeks. Israel in turn has sharply scaled back its military operations in the occupied territories. Both sides, however, continue to warn that the calm remains fragile.
Israel and the Palestinians harbor serious differences on issues that are expected to come up for discussion when the leaders meet.
Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres, however, said the move to hold a larger gathering did not reflect fear that a meeting between Sharon and Abbas alone would have yielded insufficient results.
"I am very satisfied with such a summit, with four of the important leaders," Peres told Israel Radio.
"I assume that it is being held not to quarrel but rather to reach agreements -- agreements that are broader and richer are better."
