Israel Withdrawal Date Delayed to Month's End

ISRAELI Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said yesterday that the Palestine Liberation Organization would be to blame if both sides did not meet an April 13 target date for Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Jericho.

``We didn't suspend the agreement in the wake of Palestinian terrorism against us. [PLO head Yasser Arafat] suspended the negotiations after the massacre in Hebron, and therefore the responsibility for the loss of time is not on us,'' Mr. Rabin said.

Under the September peace accord between Israel and the PLO, Israel is to complete its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho by April 13. The pullout was to begin on Dec. 13 but was delayed when the sides could not agree on security arrangements.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, at a news conference in Ankara, Turkey, said he thought an agreement on Israeli withdrawal would come by month's end rather than by April 13. Algerian prime minister resigns

ALGERIAN President Liamine Zeroual accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Redha Malek yesterday and appointed Mokdad Sifi, currently equipment minister, to succeed him, the official APS news agency announced.

The announcement came a day after Algeria's Army-backed rulers devalued their currency by 28.6 percent as part of a debt relief deal with the International Monetary Fund. Diplomats and analysts had expected Mr. Malek's resignation at the end of the long negotiations with the IMF. They said a change of premier was necessary to facilitate Mr. Zeroual's efforts to seek a negotiated solution to the country's civil strife with the Islamic opposition that seeks to establish a fundamentalist Islamic state. Kurdish violence continues in Turkey

TWELVE separatist Kurdish guerrillas and five Turkish soldiers were killed in clashes in southeastern Turkey, security officials said yesterday.

Troops killed the guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party in separate clashes in Sirnak and Bingol Provinces, an official statement said. It did not say when the clashes occurred.

Security officials said five soldiers had been killed and 16 others wounded in Sirnak Province since Saturday. Troops, backed by aircraft, are still carrying out the operation. More than 11,000 people have been killed in the southeast since 1984.