US sticking to Bush assurances to Sharon, says envoy

JERUSALEM - Washington is sticking to its support for Israel's intention to retain large West Bank settlement blocs, a US envoy said on Friday, denying an Israeli report he stated no such commitment existed.

US ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer reiterated President George W. Bush's position that it is unrealistic to expect a full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank under any future peace deal with the Palestinians.

Kurtzer made the comments to Israel Radio in a vehement denial of an Israeli newspaper report quoting him as saying there was no such understanding between the two countries.

Kurtzer said the United States stood by Bush's pledge to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, during a visit to the White House last April, that Israel should be able to keep some of the Arab land it captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

"US policy is the support that the president has given for the retention by Israel of major Israeli population centres as an outcome of negotiations," Kurtzer said. "It is very, very clear to both the US and Israel what this means."

Bush's commitment, which broke with decades of US policy, angered the Palestinians who seek all of the West Bank as part of a future independent state.

Sharon has made clear Israel's intention to keep control of large swathes of the West Bank.

He has frequently warned lawmakers that if they block his US-backed plan to withdraw from Gaza this summer, Israel risks losing US assurances that relate to the West Bank.

Palestinians are wary of Sharon's Gaza plan, seeing it as an attempt to trade the impoverished coastal strip where 8500 settlers live for a permanent hold on parts of the West Bank where the vast majority of Israel's 240,000 settlers reside.

- REUTERS