Sharon seeks to ease US concern on security fence

12.00pm

BRIZE NORTON AIR BASE, England - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be armed with a goodwill gesture to free 540 Palestinian prisoners when he seeks to ease United States concern tomorrow over a planned West Bank security fence.

Sharon, who will meet President George W Bush at the White House to discuss the US-backed peace "road map" for Israel and the Palestinians, says the fence is intended to keep Palestinian suicide bombers out of the Jewish state's cities.

Palestinians fear the fence, due to cut deep into West Bank territory, is intended to unilaterally set the borders of their envisaged state by ensuring large tracts of West Bank land are on the Israeli side of the barrier.

Bush expressed concern over the fence, which he called "a problem", after talks with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas at the White House on Friday.

"It is very difficult to develop confidence between the Palestinians and Israel with a wall snaking through the West Bank," Bush said.

It will be Sharon's eighth trip to the White House, but this time he will have a hard act to follow in the wake of Abbas' landmark visit which cemented his standing in Washington as a moderate intent on ending three years of violence with Israel.

Sharon will arrive carrying a package of confidence-building measures. Among them, the imminent release of 540 Palestinian prisoners, including 210 Islamic militants and 210 prisoners from President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction.

It was the first time Israel had issued detailed figures of its planned prisoner release which is intended to boost the US-backed road map and help Abbas gain popular support to implement it.

Sharon had until now balked at freeing any militants but wants to improve the standing of Abbas, who is under pressure from Islamic militants with whom he negotiated a deal last month to suspend attacks against Israel.

None of the prisoners due for release were involved in attacks on Israelis, officials said.

The prisoner release "should happen in the coming week", once the list of names of those due to be freed was finalised, a senior official accompanying Sharon told reporters on board his plane which stopped to refuel at an English air base.

Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Amr welcomed the decision to free the prisoners but called for more of the 6000 Palestinians held in Israeli custody to be released.

"This is a positive step from the Israeli government and we hope that we will see more releases of further batches of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails," he said.

But the Hamas and Islamic Jihad militant groups have said they want all 6000 to be freed.

In another gesture ahead of Sharon's visit, troops removed checkpoints near the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Hebron, opening the road to more than 100 villages for the first time since a Palestinian uprising for statehood began 34 months ago.

The army also issued 5000 permits to Palestinian labourers seeking to work in Israel and allowed public transport to ply the route between the West Bank cities of Nablus and Jenin.

The government says further goodwill gestures will include troop withdrawals from two Palestinian cities in the West Bank. The army has already left Bethlehem and northern Gaza.

Israel and the United States have applauded Abbas' peace efforts and refuse contact with Arafat, whom they accuse of fomenting violence. Arafat denies the charge.

Sharon was also expected to lobby for greater US pressure on Abbas to disarm militant groups who Israeli officials say are using the lull of the truce to rebuild.

The road map envisages the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005 and security guarantees for Israel.

- REUTERS