We will continue to work so that it does not run in the elections.
There is no taboo after this assassination and no one of the Palestinian leaders has immunity anymore, ... It shows once again the necessity to collect the illegal weapons and to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorist organizations.
I am sure that this meeting will be followed by more meetings in the future. We hope that finally it will lead to full diplomatic relations with Pakistan as we would like it with all Muslim and Arab countries.
If we would want at a later time to permit the entry and exit from Rafah to Egypt, and smoothly, we would want a third party there. There is no doubt that the Europeans are very interested to be the third party.
I think that this is the appropriate time for all the Muslim and Arab countries to reconsider their relations with Israel, ... I think that it will be a very positive signal to the Israeli public opinion and to the Palestinian public opinion that there are some fruits from this withdrawal from Gaza.
[At the meeting,] we also discussed the possibility of a meeting between Prime Minister Sharon and President (Pervez) Musharraf. This has not been decided, we will know in the coming days if it will happen, ... But even if it doesn't happen, I think the relations with Pakistan have moved to a much higher level.
[Alouf Benn is the diplomatic editor of Israel's] Ha'aretz ... full diplomatic relationship with Pakistan.
The Egyptian president is expected to arrive. We think he will probably come at the time of the marking of the decade since Rabin's murder. But we want the visit to have also bilateral implications.
This is a historic move because it could lead other Muslim, Arab countries to understand that this is the right time to do this and to move their ties with us from darkness to light, ... After the Gaza pullout, the time is ripe also in the eyes of the public and it is also easier at the moment to do this than it was in the past.
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