Mideast Could Get 'Road Map' in Days -US Official

27/04/2003| IslamWeb

An international "road map" for Middle East peace will be unveiled as early as next week once Palestinian legislators endorse new reform-minded Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, a U.S. official said on Saturday. The Palestinian Legislative Council is widely expected to approve Abbas's appointment at a special session in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday.

"The road map will be issued as soon as (Abbas) is confirmed. It could be a just matter of days," said the official, who is based in the Middle East but declined to be named.

The United States and its so-called "Quartet" partners, the United Nations, European Union and Russia, produced the plan in an effort to stem a bloody uprising by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip territories captured by Israel in 1967.

Under the plan, Palestinians would get statehood by 2005 in exchange for reining in resistance groups. Israel would get security.

A senior Palestinian cabinet member, Nabil Shaath, said he expected the road map to be released on Wednesday.

"This will be an important step toward reviving the peace process," Shaath, minister for planning and international cooperation, told Reuters in Gaza City.

Israel was more circumspect on the latest effort to end the 31-month-old Palestinian uprising that has included resistance bombings against the Jewish state

No Let Up on the Palestinian Front

On the Palestinian front, there was no let-up. Israeli troops in Nablus -- one of several West Bank cities Israel reoccupied after resistance bombings last year -- wounded six Palestinians during a clash with resistance men, medical officials said.

In the Gaza Strip, a resistance man died of wounds sustained in a clash last week, medical officials said.

Israel has balked at reciprocal measures required by the road map, blaming the Palestinian leadership -- namely President Yasser Arafat -- for resistance attacks on its citizens. Arafat has denied fomenting violence and has endorsed the road map.

But al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Arafat's own Fatah movement and the group behind a resistance bombing on Thursday that killed an Israeli occupation soldier at an Israeli railway station, vowed on Saturday not to back down until Israel leaves the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

PHOTO CAPTION

A Palestinian stone thrower runs for cover during clashes with the Israeli army, in which five Palestinians were hurt, in the West Bank City of Nablus on April 26, 2003. (Abed Omar Qusini/Reuters)