Powell attempting to repair road map

US Secretary of State Colin Powell is preparing to meet in Jordan with leaders of Russia, the European Union and the United Nations in an effort to repair the tattered road map for peacemaking between Israel and the Palestinians, US and diplomatic sources said yesterday.

The meeting will be held in Aqaba, where President Bush reached agreement last week with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to proceed with the peacemaking blueprint that had been prepared jointly by the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia. The tentative date is June 22, coinciding with a World Economic Forum at the Jordanian seaport, but final arrangements have not been made.

Powell will be joined by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. Senior European Union officials also were invited. The group, known as a Quartet, devised the road map that calls for an end to 33 months of conflict, establishment of a Palestinian state by 2005 and other measures designed to settle the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Powell plans to go to Jordan toward the end of a one-week trip to Asia due to begin next Monday. Approval of the road map raised hopes that Israel and the Palestinians would at least begin taking steps to resolve their differences.

Sharon, for instance, promised to dismantle settlement outposts on the West Bank, to free scores of Palestinian prisoners and said he accepted the idea of a Palestinian state. Abbas, for his part, said force no longer would be used in a continuing Palestinian uprising against Israel. But beginning on Sunday, with Palestinian militants killing four Israeli soldiers in Gaza, violence recurred, with damage to any reconciliation that may have been achieved at Aqaba.

Bush has scolded Israel for trying to assassinate a Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi, in Gaza and deplored a bloody attack on a bus in Jerusalem for which the group, which is listed as a terrorist organisation by the State Department, took responsibility.

The president on Wednesday urged all nations “to fight off terror, to cut off money to organisations such as Hamas, to isolate those who hate so much that they’re willing to kill.”

Bush said the terrorists were trying to undercut the desires of Abbas and others for a peaceful solution.

The Israeli government, apparently willing to risk the strong support it has received from Bush, was not deterred by the president’s expressed concern about the impact its strikes might have on his peacemaking effort and on the standing of Abbas, who is backed by the administration as a moderate committed to peace with Israel.

Israeli helicopters, responding to the terror in Jerusalem, killed two Hamas militants and seven other Palestinians in attacks in Gaza.