Rice met Sharon to tackle the U.S.-driven roadmap

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, June 29 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice met Sunday, June 29, with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to tackle the U.S.-driven 'roadmap' and the "war on terror" following her Saturday's talks with Palestinian premier Mahmud Abbas during which she invited him to visit Washington.

Earlier in the day, Rice met with Sharon's top aide, Dov Weisglass, and Palestinian finance minister Salam Fayad, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported according to the Israeli public radio.

"Rice went into discussions with Dov Weisglass and Salam Fayad on civilian issues," the radio said without specifying where the meeting was taking place.

Before her meeting with Sharon, Israeli Foreign Ministry official Gideon Meir told Reuters News Agency that Rice's talks with Sharon would cover dismantling the Palestinian "terrorist infrastructure."

U.S. President George W. Bush urged the European Union Wednesday, June 25, to take "swift and decisive" action to starve Islamic resistance movement Hamas of money and support, but the bloc put off such a decision amid clear opposition from some of its members.

On Saturday evening, June 28, Rice met with Abbas in an effort to pull the two sides back from the brink, after more than 60 people were killed earlier this month in a wave of tit-for-tat violence, and kick-start the implementation of the 'roadmap.'

The plan calls on the Palestinians to curb "terror attacks" on Israelis and requires that Israel freeze all Jewish settlement activity and dismantle illegal outposts as the first steps leading to the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

The Palestinian resistance groups said June 10 that the failed Israeli attempt against the life of Hamas senior leader Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi was a "coup de grace" in the heart of the U.S.-driven roadmap for Mideast peace.

Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan, foreign minister Nabil Shaath and governmental affairs minister Yasser Abed Rabbo also joined the talks at Jericho's Grand Hotel.

During the meeting with Abbas, the Palestinian side called for a freeze on Israeli settlements and the release by Israel of Palestinians prisoners, including Marwan Barghouti, West Bank chief of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement who has been held since 2002, a Palestinian official close to the talks said.

Rice, whose trip follows U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit to the region last week, left Washington on Wednesday and spent two days in Britain before traveling to the Middle East.

Invitation

Abbas shakes hands with Condoleezza Rice

Emerging from the meeting, a senior Palestinian official said that Rice invited Abbas to visit the White House.

Rice asked Abbas to come to Washington "in the coming weeks" to meet with Bush, said the official, who asked to remain anonymous.

Bush had announced during a June 4 summit in Aqaba, Jordan that he would invite Abbas to Washington.

Rice's visit comes as differences between the Palestinian Fatah movement and the resistance group Hamas were delaying the announcement of the envisaged Palestinian-Israeli truce.

Fatah's blueprint, a copy of which was obtained by IOL, features an all-inclusive initiative that provides for an unconditional truce and a six-months halt of all military operations, while Hamas proposes a conditional three-month truce and warns that if Israel fails to meet a number of conditions, Palestinian resistance factions will feel free to disavow the truce.

Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, however, said Friday, June 27, that "Hamas has studied all the developments and has reached a decision to call a truce, or a suspension of fighting activities."

The Israeli public radio announced Saturday that the Israeli army would pull out Monday, June 30, from parts of the Gaza Strip under a deal reached with the Palestinian Authority.

The radio said Israeli officers will meet with Palestinian counterparts Sunday, to discuss the details of the withdrawal from parts of the northern Gaza Strip.