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NEW YORK (CNN) -- The CIA's role in the Middle East is to squelch terrorism and improve communications between the Israeli government and the Palestinian authority, agency Director George Tenet wrote in a newspaper article published on Tuesday.
"There have been so many incorrect guesses about why the Central Intelligence Agency is involved in the effort to bring peace to the Middle East, and so much speculation about its supposedly new role, that I have decided to set the record straight -- to the extent that confidentiality will allow," Tenet wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece published Tuesday.
The CIA has tried to improve the professionalism of security forces on the West Bank and Gaza, and bolster confidence that steps are being taken to end violence in the region, he said.
Under the U.S.-brokered interim peace agreement signed by Israel and the Palestinians last week, the CIA would keep track of Palestinian efforts to arrest and punish terrorists as a way of assuaging Israeli security concerns.
The agreement would create a three-party mediation system under which Palestinian and Israeli security officials could present disputes to a CIA arbiter.
The CIA would keep American policy makers informed of how the peace agreement is being carried out.
Tenet said the role is essentially similar to its current mission in the region.
"There's nothing new in this role for the CIA," Tenet wrote. "What is slightly unusual in the current case is that the agency's role has become widely publicized."
Tenet said the CIA is not positioning itself between combatants, placing officers in the security operations of either side, assuming direct ground control, or serving as border guards or bodyguards. CIA officers will not arrest or interrogate anyone, he said.
"In sum," Tenet wrote, "the CIA is not making policy but helping carry it out. This is consistent with the agency's history of fighting terrorism and helping friends and allies in the region live together peacefully and safely."
But some critics, even within the CIA, are uncomfortable with the plan. Some view it as overstepping the limits of its charter, Critics say the new role makes the agency too visible and could drag CIA agents into policymaking and politics.
The Israeli-Palestinian deal "would require the United States to play advocate, ally and judge all at the same time, a very difficult juggling act for any outside party," said Robert Satloff of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.