Jerusalem — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat enemies for decades both raised the possibility of peace talks Thursday, Sharon's first full day in office.
But the two have never shaken hands in previous face-to-face negotiations, and their frosty relationship seemed to offer scant hope of revived peacemaking.
As he settled into his new office, Sharon received a letter of congratulations from Arafat. The letter also called for restarting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that broke off shortly before Sharon's landslide election victory Feb. 6.
"I believe there must be a just and true peace brought about through a strong desire and a genuine effort to overcome the difficulties," Arafat wrote in a separate letter to Israel's President Moshe Katsav.
In a response to Arafat, Sharon renewed his commitment to the peace process and to resuming negotiations based on past agreements, Arafat aide Nabil Abourdeneh said.
Asked if he was prepared to sit down with Arafat, Sharon re-plied, "I'm ready to meet and to conduct negotiations with him, but that means we have to have quiet and security."
The two men have a bitter history.
When Sharon was foreign minister in 1998, he and Arafat took part in U.S.-brokered negotiations outside Washington. But Sharon pointedly refused to shake Arafat's hand despite encouragement by the Americans.
Sharon called Arafat a "murderer" in a magazine interview last year. He has toned down his rhetoric, but accuses Arafat of failing to halt attacks by Palestinian militants in the current fighting.
Palestinian militants fired two mortar shells Thursday night at the Jewish settlement of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip, and a gunbattle between militants and Israeli forces followed, the army spokesman said. Jewish settlers were instructed to enter bomb shelters but no injuries were reported.
The Palestinians "have to realize that there is no place for terror," Uzi Landau, the internal security minister, told Israel radio. "The price that the Palestinians pay (for violence) has to be higher than the price Israel pays. That has to be our policy."
Sharon has insisted that five months of violence must end before negotiations can restart; the violence has left more than 420 people dead. But some Palestinians have said that the intifadah, or uprising, will not end until Israel pulls its troops out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and dismantles Jewish settlements there.
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