ME summit postponed

Sharon and Abbas had been expected to hold their third meeting of the year on Tuesday but a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority said there had been insufficient progress during talks aimed at laying the groundwork.

"The meeting has been postponed until the end of the month as there have been insufficient preparations," Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP.

There was no immediate confirmation from the Israelis that the decision had been made to delay the meeting but officials had earlier voiced little enthusiasm for such a summit and said they were only trying to show willingness in the face of pressure from the United States.

"Sharon has nothing to give to Abbas and Abbas has no interest in a meeting that does not yield results," one senior cabinet minister told AFP.

Another Israeli official said that the Americans were pressuring Sharon to give ground on Palestinian demands for prisoner releases but the prime minister was determined to study each possible release on a case-by-case basis.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat had been due to hold a new round of talks with Sharon's chief aide Dov Weisglass after two earlier sessions had failed to iron out differences on the text of a joint statement from both leaders after the summit.

"We want to agree on the final summit statement. What matters is the content of this summit, not the date," Erakat had told reporters.

Erakat was speaking after talks in the West Bank town of Ramallah with senior US State Department official David Welch who was also due to meet with Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom later in the day.

Three Palestinian teenagers were shot dead by Israeli troops patrolling the southern section of Israel's border with Gaza early Monday.

Palestinian medics discovered the bodies of the three youngsters next to the security fence near the Kissufim crossing in southern Gaza.