Palestinians: No changes to road map

Palestinian officials said today that they would not accept any changes to the US-backed road map to peace after Israel signalled it might support the plan, but only if some of its objections were taken into account.

The plan calls for an immediate end to violence, the dismantling of some Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

The Palestinians have accepted the road map, while Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has expressed major reservations.

Despite the obstacles, Sharon has for the first time signalled qualified support for the road map, an Israeli official said.

Sharon told the White House through an emissary that he would go along with it as long as the United States took Israel’s concerns into account. A White House announcement is expected later today.

A senior Israeli official said it was unclear whether Sharon would present the road map for a vote at his weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday. Israel wants its key objections noted in the plan, said the official.

The Palestinians said they had been assured by Washington that there would be no changes to the plan, and that they had accepted it based on this promise.

“We are ready to implement the road map as one package and without any changes,” Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Amr said today.

One major obstacle to adopting the road map is a disagreement between Sharon and the new Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas over how to deal with Palestinian militant groups that carried out scores of shootings and bombings in the last 32 months of fighting.

In the first phase of the peace plan, Palestinian security forces would rein in the militants, and Israel would withdraw from Palestinian towns and stop expanding Jewish settlements.

Abbas wants to persuade militants to lay down their arms through dialogue, while Sharon insists they be disarmed and arrested.

Abbas summoned leaders of the Islamic terror group Hamas to his Gaza City office last night in his first visible effort to help end attacks on Israeli civilians.

Hamas and other Palestinian militias carried out five suicide bombings that killed 12 Israelis and wounded dozens of others earlier this week.

Palestinian Cabinet Minister Ziad Abu Amr, who participated in the meeting, said using force against the militants “would be counterproductive.”

The Hamas officials told Abbas last night that they were ready for a partial truce – halting attacks on civilians in Israel, but continuing to target Israeli settlers and soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip – but only if Israel stopped hunting its members.

Sharon adviser Raanan Gissin dismissed the idea: “They can murder just a little and we can stop defending ourselves? This is a non-starter.”

:: Just before Abbas’ meeting with Hamas, Israel said it had intercepted a boat heading from Lebanon to Gaza carrying a top Hezbollah explosives expert, 25 rocket detonators and 36 CD-Rom disks with instructions on how to make bomb belts for suicide attacks.

A Palestinian Authority spokesman denied Israeli claims the authority or Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had anything to do with the ship.