Roadmap for Mideast peace hits potholes

The latest international push for Middle East peace faltered yesterday when Israeli and Palestinian leaders objected to a "roadmap" presented by United States envoy William Burns.

It was the first major US diplomatic mission to the region for months, but was widely regarded as a stopgap bid to contain violence to help Washington woo Arab support for war on Iraq, rather than a propitious peace initiative.

On the second day of his trip, Burns held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem and Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer in Tel Aviv.

He also met Palestinian officials in the West Bank town of Jericho.

But expectations were low after two years of bloodshed in a Palestinian uprising for independence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and a string of abortive international peace missions.

Both sides were wary of the plan, called a "roadmap" by the international quartet of peacemakers who drafted it.

Israeli leaders said it lacked security guarantees and Palestinians said it needed timetables and enforcement mechanisms.

The plan envisages an end to violence, on top of Palestinian reforms and Israeli Army withdrawals from occupied cities, leading to a final settlement and a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza by 2005.

Ben-Eliezer, echoing Sharon's view leaked by aides before Burns arrived, said the plan had positive elements but no means to ensure violence would stop if Israeli troops left West Bank towns.

"He also stressed that Israel maintains its right to defend itself and will not agree to limitations on that score by any particular 'roadmap'," a statement by Ben-Eliezer's office said.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Israel's leading dove and a proponent of compromise with Palestinians for peace, said the plan short-changed the Jewish state on security.

"The need is to place the security issue at the top of the agenda. We cannot allow the agenda to be in the hands of suicide bombers and terrorists," he told Israeli Army radio.

Peres held talks with Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat this week.

A Palestinian official said Erekat wanted guarantees that Palestinian parliamentarians would be allowed to travel to Ramallah and convene next week to vote on President Yasser Arafat's new Cabinet.

Burns refused to see Arafat, in keeping with US policy to ostracise him because of Washington's view that he has not done enough to stop violence.

Instead Burns, an assistant secretary of state, met a senior delegation including Palestinian parliament speaker Ahmed Korei and Cabinet ministers.

Korei hinted afterwards that the plan - drafted by the "quartet" of mediators from the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - was too vague to succeed.

"We need a real roadmap that will take us to the last destination, a real Palestinian independent state that can live beside Israel in peace.

"We want a very clear road without obstacles or checkpoints," said Korei.

In the latest violence, a 16-year-old Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli troops occupying the West Bank town of Jenin after he tried to climb on to a tank in a column that had been pelted with petrol bombs, witnesses said. The Army said soldiers fired because they feared he could be a suicide bomber or was carrying explosives or petrol bombs.

At the United Nations, the US and Britain, hoping for a vote next week, launched efforts to convince UN Security Council members their draft resolution did not necessarily mean war with Iraq.

Colombian ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso told reporters the revised US draft "was getting a little bit more support but it's not there yet".

Impatient at weeks of inconclusive talks, the Bush Administration has introduced to the 15-member council a tough draft resolution, spelling out how Iraq should account for weapons of mass destruction, with some US officials expecting a vote as early as next week.

A diplomatic offensive was also expected at the Apec conference this weekend when officials of five nations with seats in the council - China, Mexico, Singapore, Russia as well as the US - meet in Los Cabos, Mexico.

President George W. Bush will see Chinese President Jiang Zemin at his Texas ranch before the conference, but Russian President Vladimir Putin called off his Mexico trip because of the Moscow hostage crisis.

To be adopted, a Security Council resolution requires at least nine out of 15 votes in favour, and no veto from any of the five permanent members - the US, Britain, France, Russia and China.

- REUTERS

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