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| Tuesday, 29 July 2003 |
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Sharon to ease US concern on security fence WASHINGTON, Monday (Reuters) Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be armed with a goodwill gesture to free 540 Palestinian prisoners when he seeks to ease U.S. concern on Tuesday over a planned West Bank security fence. Sharon, who arrived in the United States late on Sunday and who will meet President George W. Bush at the White House to discuss the U.S.-backed peace "road map" for Israel and the Palestinians, says the fence is intended to keep Palestinian suicide bombers out of the Jewish state's cities. Palestinians fear the fence, due to cut deep into West Bank territory, is intended to unilaterally set the borders of their envisaged state by ensuring large tracts of West Bank land are on the Israeli side of the barrier. Bush expressed concern over the fence, which he called "a problem," after talks with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas at the White House on Friday. "It is very difficult to develop confidence between the Palestinians and Israel with a wall snaking through the West Bank," Bush said. It is Sharon's eighth trip to the White House, but this time he will have a hard act to follow in the wake of Abbas's landmark visit which cemented his standing in Washington as a moderate intent on ending three years of violence with Israel. Sharon arrives carrying a package of confidence-building measures. Among them, the imminent release of 540 Palestinian prisoners, including 210 Islamic militants and 210 prisoners from President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction. It was the first time Israel had issued detailed figures of its planned prisoner release which is intended to boost the U.S.-backed road map and help Abbas gain popular support to implement it. Sharon had until now balked at freeing any militants but wants to improve the standing of Abbas, who is under pressure from Islamic militants with whom he negotiated a deal last month to suspend attacks against Israel. The prisoner release "should happen in the coming week," once the list of names of those due to be freed was finalized, a senior official accompanying Sharon told reporters on board his plane which stopped to refuel at an English air base. |
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