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Thursday, October 1, 2009     FOLLOW UPDATES ON TWITTER

Palestinian PM reconciles with U.S. Gen. Dayton

RAMALLAH Ñ The Palestinian Authority has agreed to make peace with the head of U.S. security training in the West Bank.   

PA officials said Prime Minister Salam Fayad has agreed to end his boycott of U.S. security coordinator Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton. Fayad has refused to meet Dayton for nearly five months amid accusations that the U.S. general was intervening in PA domestic affairs.

"Fayad and the PA leadership have decided to start again," an official said.

Officials said Fayad has agreed to meet Dayton in Ramallah on Oct. 5 in what would mark a renewal of cooperation, Middle East Newsline reported. They said the prime minister had rejected five previous requests by Dayton for a meeting.


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In August 2009, Fayad relayed a request to the United States to recall Dayton, said to have intervened in Palestinian internal affairs. The prime minister was said to have been angered by statements made by Dayton that were deemed as having belittled the PA as well as bypassing the Palestinian security chain of command.

But the White House rejected Fayad's request to replace Dayton, said to have a direct line to senior officials in the White House and State Department. At the same time, senior U.S. officials urged PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Fayad to reconcile with Dayton.

In September, the White House also quelled a PA campaign to attack Dayton in the U.S. media. In one development, officials said, Dayton's superiors at the White House and State Department pressed Time Magazine to cancel publication of a report on Dayton and friction with the PA. A Time source confirmed that "high-level political pressure" led to the cancellation of the report.

Officials said Dayton has sought to accelerate PA security training and weapons procurement to expand deployment throughout the West Bank. They said Dayton plans to send another three battalions of the National Security Force to Jordan for a four-month training course over the next year. The PA has deemed the Jordanian training program ineffective and wasteful.

So far, NSF has been the only PA security agency to cooperate with the U.S. training program in Jordan. Dayton, however, has succeeded in persuading other agencies to send senior officers to a commander's course in Ramallah.

Another U.S. proposal was for the establishment of training centers for international peace-keepers in the West Bank. Under the plan, Dayton would help set up three centers, one of them in Israel and the rest in areas under PA rule.



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