GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat agreed on Wednesday to make a new bid to forge a lasting truce that could boost U.S. efforts to create a global anti-terror coalition. (Read photo caption below)Meeting under U.S. pressure, the leaders reiterated their commitment to a truce-to-talks plan that allows for measures including the lifting of blockades imposed on Palestinian areas in a year of violence that has killed more than 700 people.
Peres and Arafat also agreed at the talks at Gaza airport to hold a second meeting ``within a week or so'' to turn a shaky truce into a lasting cease-fire.
But they did not hold a planned joint news conference and Israeli media said the talks had been strained.
Even as they met, Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian teen-ager in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian hospital sources said. Three soldiers were wounded in a bomb blast in the same area before talks began.
Arafat and Peres pledged a ``full commitment'' to implement the U.S.-brokered truce-to-talks plan, known as the Mitchell report, and a cease-fire brokered by the United States in June.
``The two sides will resume full security cooperation and exert maximum efforts to sustain the declared cease-fire,'' they said in a joint statement read out to reporters by Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat.
``In accordance with the parties' commitments, they will carry out all their security obligations emanating from previous agreements, and the government of Israel will begin to lift closures and redeploy its forces,'' it said.
Several earlier attempts to arrange a lasting cease-fire have failed since a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation began almost exactly a year ago, and there is still little optimism the violence will end completely.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres (R) and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (L) shake hands before talks in Rafah September 26, 2001. Peres and Arafat agreed to make a new bid to forge a lasting truce that could boost U.S. efforts to create a global anti-terror coalition. (Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters)