ME talks fail

Palestinian ceasefire talks ended in failure yesterday as militant groups rejected a comprehensive truce seen as crucial to reviving a US-backed peace road map.

"The meetings have ended without agreement. There will be no final joint communique," a senior official from the militant Islamic group Hamas told Reuters.

Egypt had been pushing the 13 factions attending the talks to accept a comprehensive ceasefire that would involve halting attacks against all Israelis, but Hamas and four other factions said they would only stop attacks against civilians in Israel.

"Our final response along with the four other factions is we are not ready to declare a new ceasefire," Hamas official Mohammed Nazzal said in Cairo.

Israeli officials expressed disappointment at the breakdown of the talks, seen as key to underpinning the road map that sets out steps to end three years of Israeli-Palestinian violence and the establishment of a Palestinian state in 2005. "By scuttling a ceasefire they are undermining, or delaying the process in which the Palestinians can reach statehood," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's spokesman Raanan Gissin said.