Posted on 05/04/2003 8:43:09 AM PDT by knighthawk
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday he was seeking a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to discuss the new U.S.-backed "road map" to Middle East peace.
"We want to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Sharon and we want to have talks with the Israeli government. We have sent messages to the Israelis to arrange a preparatory meeting between us to be followed by a meeting with Prime Minister Sharon,' Abbas told reporters.
"These meetings are natural to discuss implementation of the road map and the mutual commitments that will be carried out by the sides, but until now we have not received any response, maybe because of the holidays," he said.
Israel marks its annual independence day this week.
Israeli government sources said Sharon was likely to see Abbas after Secretary of State Colin Powell visits Israel and the Palestinian territories around May 10.
Abbas, who took office on Wednesday, said he would discuss a possible meeting with Sharon with visiting U.S. envoy William Burns in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday.
Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen, said the Palestinian Authority has accepted the road map "as is."
"What is needed now is to hear from the Israelis that they have accepted (the road map)," Abbas said. "If the roadmap is re-opened it will never be closed...we have to move directly to implementing it."
Israel has listed 15 reservations about the document, which was presented after the reformist prime minister's cabinet was approved by the Palestinian parliament on Tuesday.
The peace plan calls for a stop to violence in a now 31-month-old Palestinian uprising, a freeze in Jewish settlement expansion on occupied land in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.
Israel has said it would not make confidence-building measures under the plan, such as troop pullouts from Palestinian areas reoccupied last year after a spate of suicide bombings, until Abbas cracked down on militants.
But Abbas could face a political backlash at home should he take such action without any easing of Israeli restrictions on Palestinians.
Abbas, a former peace negotiator, has met several times in the past with Sharon and has criticized the Palestinians' use of violence in their revolt for statehood.
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