Saleh Al-Neami • Asharq Al-Awsat

GAZA, 18 June 2003 — The United States yesterday stepped up its efforts to repair the disintegrating road map for peace in the Middle East. A US envoy dispatched to the region to supervise implementation of the peace plan met with the Palestinian prime minister while Secretary of State Colin Powell scheduled a visit to the area for Friday.

The head of the US monitoring team, John Wolf, held talks with Mahmoud Abbas ahead of the prime minister’s meeting with Palestinian militias.

Powell will arrive in Israel on Friday after meeting in Jordan with representatives of the other three members of the Quartet of Middle East mediators — the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said. “It is an important visit. I will certainly meet him, and the prime minister (Ariel Sharon) will meet him,” Shalom said.

Powell visited Israel and the Palestinian territories in May ahead of a June 4 summit in Aqaba, Jordan, in which US President George W. Bush, Abbas and Sharon affirmed the road map that envisages Palestinian statehood by 2005.

Since the three-way gathering, tit-for-tat Israeli-Palestinian attacks have killed more than 50 people and blocked US attempts to put the peace plan into motion.

“We asked the Americans to take the lead in the peace process, and that is what we are getting,” Shalom told Israeli television. He said US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was likely to follow Powell to Israel on June 29.

A US official said he had no details of Powell’s schedule, but the secretary of state was also widely expected to see Palestinian leaders in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

There was no word on the outcome of the talks Wolf held with Abbas, senior Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan and Amin Al-Hindi, head of military intelligence. Abbas’ Culture Minister Ziad Abu Amr said the government was working for a cease-fire agreement with hard-line Palestinian groups “without putting any pressure on any party”. Peace prospects brightened Monday with progress reported on cease-fire talks and an accord near on a withdrawal of Israeli troops from parts of the Gaza Strip and perhaps Bethlehem.

But a senior Hamas leader said after two days of talks with a senior Egyptian delegation that “now is not the time for a truce.” Sharon also took a hard line later Monday.

Despite the sharpening rhetoric, Israeli and Palestinian officials met yesterday on details of an accord for a partial Israeli pullout, Palestinian officials said. Dahlan and Gen. Abdelrazak Al-Majaida, head of public security in the Gaza Strip, took part in the discussions with Amos Gilad, Israeli coordinator of activities in the Palestinian territories.