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US envoy to meet Palestinian PM in peace bid ( 2003-06-17 17:12) (Agenceis)
New US peace envoy John Wolf is to meet Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday in a fresh bid to salvage a US-backed peace "road map" battered by a week of violence.
Egyptian mediators failed on Monday to persuade Palestinian militants to call a cease-fire with Israel. While US officials counseled restraint, Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned that he would not relax his pursuit of militants.
Last week's violence included the killing of four Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip, a Hamas suicide bombing on a Jerusalem bus in which 17 died and Israeli air attacks that killed more than 20 Palestinian militants and civilians.
Sharon ruled out concessions to the Palestinians unless they cracked down on Hamas.
"We cannot achieve a political arrangement, and certainly not a peace deal, when terror runs rampant," the right-wing former general told parliament in a nationally televised speech, in which he said Israel "wants and needs peace."
Sharon sat expressionless while opposition lawmakers on the left accused him of sabotaging the road map by launching attacks on Hamas militants last week.
Far-right legislators chided Sharon for accepting the plan.
The latest developments cast further doubt on US efforts to prop up a Middle East peace plan launched on June 4 at a summit led by President Bush and crippled since then by bloody attack and retaliation.
Secretary of State Colin Powell could visit Israel on Friday to add more weight to US mediation attempts, a senior US official said in Washington on Monday.
Representatives of Hamas and other militant groups meeting in Gaza said they had demanded international guarantees for a halt to Israeli military strikes on their leaders before they would agree to stop their own attacks on Israelis.
But after three hours with the Egyptian delegation, senior Hamas official Ismail Abu Shanab said a cease-fire was unacceptable. "Cease-fire means surrender to occupation," he told reporters.
Wolf, who according to Army Radio met Sharon on Monday night, is to meet Abbas in Gaza, where the Palestinian premier is also likely to meet with leaders of Hamas and other factions in a bid to secure calm, a Palestinian official said.
US MISSION, PARALLEL TALKS
In parallel talks, Israeli and Palestinian officials have been discussing a pullback of Israeli troops from northern Gaza and the West Bank city of Bethlehem in return for a Palestinian pledge to curb militants in those areas.
Hamas, sworn to Israel's long-term destruction, has said it will cease attacks in a 32-month-old uprising for independence only when Israel leaves the West Bank and Gaza.
"The resistance will continue until the enemy responds to our people's demands," wheelchair-bound Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin said.
Sharon's pledge to pursue Hamas militants followed an attempt on the life of Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, a close Yassin aide, who was wounded in a missile strike in Gaza last Tuesday.
Israel's parliament voted 57 to 42 to back Sharon's stance on Monday, a warning to Abbas that Israel would intervene forcefully against Hamas if Abbas, fearful of Palestinian civil war, did not.
In Washington, Sharon's chief of staff Dov Weisglass held talks with Powell and US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on ways to keep the road map alive. Israeli political sources said Weisglass was joined by internal security service chief Avi Dichter, for talks with US counterparts.
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