Bush wins Israeli and Palestinian promises to seek peace

11.45am

AQABA, Jordan - United States President George W Bush won an Israeli pledge to start uprooting some settlement outposts in the West Bank and a Palestinian call to end armed struggle for a state at a landmark summit today.

The promises from Israeli leader Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas set in motion the US-backed "road map" for peace and Palestinian statehood, cementing Bush's new role as chief mediator in the conflict.

"Great hope and change is coming to the Middle East," Bush said before the two prime ministers shook hands for the first time in public at the three-way summit in the Jordanian Red Sea port city of Aqaba.

Bush said after 75 minutes of talks with Abbas and Sharon that all sides had made important commitments. Like a cowboy, he would "ride herd" to try to ensure their fulfilment, he said.

But with cool reactions from Jewish settlers and Palestinian militants, Bush remained cautious.

"There are killers lurking in the neighbourhood," he said of those pledged to destroy Israel.

In closing speeches at a palace overlooking the Gulf of Aqaba, Sharon and Abbas said they both envisioned a time when Israeli and Palestinian states would live side by side in peace.

But questions remained over whether Abbas would be able to make good on his vows to persuade militants to stop attacking Israelis in the 32-month-old Palestinian uprising for statehood.

"We will never be ready to lay down arms until the liberation of the last centimetre of the land of Palestine," Hamas official Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi said. Islamic Jihad, another group sworn to Israel's destruction, followed suit.

The Palestinians have questioned Sharon's commitment to a two-state solution and to taking the politically risky move of dismantling Jewish settlements.

Several thousand people gathered in Jerusalem on Wednesday evening to oppose giving up settlements. "Palestinian state -- disaster for the Israeli state," one banner declared.

"The Aqaba summit was a humiliating ceremony in which the Israeli government celebrated its surrender to Palestinian terror," said the YESHA Council which represents the settlers.

Security has been beefed up around Sharon, officials said.

The road map charts the creation of a Palestinian state in 2005 after the two sides complete reciprocal confidence-building steps that include a freeze on settlement expansion.

In his statement as Bush, Abbas and host King Abdullah of Jordan stood beside him, Sharon said Israel "will begin immediately to evacuate unauthorised outposts".

Sharon was referring to mainly sparsely populated hilltop settlements established without Israeli government permission in the West Bank after March 2001, when Sharon came to power, and which the road map mandates must be scrapped. He did not say how many outposts -- there are an estimated 60 -- would be uprooted.

Sharon also said Israel understood "the importance of territorial contiguity in the West Bank for a viable Palestinian state", a remark suggesting some long-established settlements might be evacuated as part of a permanent peace accord.

The international community views as illegal all the settlements Israel planted on land it seized in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel disputes this.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath described as unprecedented Sharon's "very clear commitment and recognition of an independent Palestinian state and very clear talk of ending settlement activity".

In comments likely to please Sharon and Bush, Abbas pledged in his statement to exert "full efforts" to end "the militarisation" of the uprising that began in September 2000.

"The armed Intifada must end and we must resort to peaceful means to achieve our goals," Abbas said, in effect calling for the culmination of a decades-old armed struggle for statehood.

The summit and Tuesday's meeting between Bush and Arab leaders in Egypt marked Abbas' debut on the world stage.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, shunned by the United States and Israel over his alleged support of violence, was not invited. He denies encouraging bloodshed.

Syria, accused by Washington of sponsoring terrorism in part due to support for anti-Israeli groups like Hizbollah, said it wanted a just and comprehensive peace with Israel. But Damascus said it had seen no role for itself in this week's talks.

The road map and Bush's first presidential visit to the Middle East underscored his new strategy of stronger personal involvement in peacemaking following victory in the war in Iraq that touched off anger in the Arab world.

But he also risked plunging into the Middle East quagmire where his predecessors became bogged down.

He said he asked Secretary of State Colin Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to make "this cause a matter of the highest priority". He said the United States would place a monitoring "mission on the ground" led by John Wolf.

- REUTERS