RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) - The Palestinians will announce a formal ceasefire at next´s week landmark Middle East summit in Egypt, new Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas told reporters.

"We will announce a ceasefire and the Israeli side must announce the same thing," Abbas said Thursday.

Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will meet in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Tuesday in what will be the first summit between the top leaders of both sides in more than four years.

The Palestinian Authority president said he had decided to accept an invitation from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as there had been "positive signals" in the peace process.

"I hope that the summit will be succesful," he said. "There are many positive signals. We must go."

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres had earlier expressed hope that there would be a joint declaration by Abbas and Sharon for a total end to violence which has claimed some 4,700 lives since the eruption of the Palestinian intifada in September 2000.

"I hope that during the course of this summit there will be a declaration of a total end to violence and combat," Peres told military radio.

The meeting could represent a "new chapter that will allow us to move away from the intifada," Peres added.

A senior aide to Sharon said the meeting would not focus on negotiations over the Middle East roadmap peace plan.

"This summit will be an occasion for declarations, which will be of great significance, but it it is still too early to have political negotiations on the roadmap," the official said. (Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse. 02/03/05)