US pushes road map for peace

JERUSALEM - A suspected Palestinian suicide bomber killed at least one person and wounded 10 others yesterday when he blew himself up at the entrance to a train station in the central Israeli town of Kfar Saba.

The bomber apparently detonated his explosives when an Israeli security guard stopped him from entering the station, a link between Tel Aviv and its suburbs, during morning rush hour, Israeli media said.

The United States earlier called for quick confirmation of a Palestinian Cabinet and vowed to put its "shoulder to the wheel" to implement a long-delayed Middle East peace plan.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister-designate, agreed on the makeup of a reform Cabinet, defusing a power struggle that has held up a new "road map" aimed at ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"The next step would be the submission of the Cabinet to the Palestinian legislature and [they] would need to quickly approve it," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "We see no need for that to take any length of time."

Confirmation would trigger release of the "road map" peace plan on behalf of the mediating quartet comprised of the US, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.

A senior Arafat aide said that under the Cabinet deal Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, would also serve as Interior Minister while Mohammed Dahlan, the powerful former Gaza security chief, would be in charge of security affairs.

Arafat had rejected any role for Dahlan, whom he fired last year, but apparently yielded to pressure from the US and others who deemed Dahlan a key to curbing militants opposed to negotiating peace.

US President George W. Bush discussed the developments and his plans to release the road map by phone with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.

Bush also thanked Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for his role, a White House spokesman said.

Despite Bush's pledge to release the document soon after a new Cabinet is approved under Abbas, its future is far from certain.

A powerful pro-Israel coalition, which so far includes most of Congress and many of Bush's Republican allies as well as Democratic challengers, will call on the President not to press Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to make concessions until the Palestinians do more to fight terrorism. But Fleischer said the road map envisioned "a series of actions that need to be taken by all parties".

"This very well may be the right time, the right moment to do something new and different in the Middle East in terms of the parties working together to achieve peace," he said.


- REUTERS

What it means:

* The road map envisions a raft of measures, including a halt to Palestinian violence.

* It also aims for an end to Jewish settlement building in the West Bank and Gaza.

* Compliance would pave the way for Palestinian statehood in the two territories by 2005.

* White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said it was "a set document" that would be officially provided to the parties after the Palestinian Cabinet was certified and ratified.