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Abbas wants Bush to fulfill two-state vision
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he will ask US President Bush at a White House meeting on Thursday to fulfill his vision of a viable, sovereign Palestinian state living next to Israel in peace and security. Abbas told reporters ahead of his first White House meeting as president that his vision for ending the decade-old conflict with Israel rests on the establishment of a sovereign, democratic state in the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, lands Israel occupied since 1967. He said the Palestinians were prepared to make the painful sacrifices necessary to ensure it materializes.
Abbas' visit to Washington is the first by a Palestinian president since Middle East peace negotiations collapsed in 2000 into violence, for which U.S. officials often blamed Arafat. Washington, eager to embark on the long-stalled "road map," has welcomed Abbas' vow to seek statehood by peaceful means as well as a cease-fire he declared with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in February and persuaded militants to respect. Abbas said he was reassured on Wednesday by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney that the United States was committed to the implementation of the road map and would help advance peace moves. He said members of Congress told him on Wednesday they had "no objection" to channeling financial aid directly to the Palestinian Authority instead of sending it through third parties since they were satisfied with the degree of transparency and reform efforts of Abbas' government. YEAR OF PEACE In an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Abbas expressed concern that Bush's two-state vision was being undermined by Israeli unilateral steps. "Israel's ongoing settlement construction in the West Bank, it's insidious Wall, which, since not built on the 1967 border, is suffocating Palestinian cities and towns," Abbas wrote. "It's (Israel's) illegal attempts to cut off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, if allowed to continue, render a two-state solution to our conflict an impossibility," he added. For the next few months, the world's attention would focus on Israel's planned unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, he said, and pointed out that the Palestinians did not see this move as a gesture of peace. "Rather, it diverts attention away from Israel's settlement expansion of the West Bank ... and Palestinians fear the Gaza Strip will become a large prison," he wrote. Israel's mid-August disengagement plan includes the evacuation of all 21 settlements in Gaza Strip and four out of 120 in the West Bank. Under pressure from Washington, the Palestinians have agreed to coordinate the pullout with Israel to ensure a smooth, peaceable evacuation. Abbas said the Israelis and Palestinians now have a window of opportunity to end the conflict. "I am ready immediately to sit down with Prime Minister Sharon and start permanent peace negotiations," Abbas said. "If President Bush is still convinced and committed to his original vision, as I hope he will be, and if Prime Minister Sharon impressed to abandon a unilateral solution, we can together make 2005 a year of peace in the Middle East," he said. |
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