Arafat declares commitment to peace

PALESTINIAN President Yasser Arafat declared a commitment to reaching a total cease-fire with Israel in a letter given to envoys of the peacemaking “Quartet,” Palestinian officials said yesterday.

But the letter cited conditions, including an international observer force to help enforce US-led peace moves, that Israel has already rejected. Israeli officials swiftly dismissed Arafat's initiative as a ploy to avoid threatened expulsion.

The four-month-old "road map" peace plan sponsored by the Quartet has been stymied by a relapse into tit-for-tat bloodshed in recent weeks with Washington preoccupied by turmoil in occupied Iraq and a looming election campaign at home.