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At a landmark summit capping a two-day visit to the region by US President Bush, the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers pledged Wednesday to follow a US-backed "road map" to peace. They included an Israeli pledge to uproot unauthorized settlements in the West Bank, and a Palestinian vow to end the armed struggle for a state.
Bush promised to make the plan a "matter of the highest priority" and got some promises in return.
Emerging from three-way talks against a backdrop of the Gulf of Aqaba, Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas offered a measured, and at times upbeat, assessment of their talks.
Sharon, long reluctant to enter into peace talks with the Palestinians, called the summit a "new opportunity of hope between Israelis and Palestinians," pledging to remove unauthorized Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Abbas, meanwhile, said the Palestinian leadership renounced violence of any kind against Israelis.
Calling such violence inconsistent with Palestinians' Islamic faith and the establishment of an independent state they have long sought, Abbas also pledged to end "the militarization of the intifada."
"The armed intifada must end and we must use and resort to peaceful means in our quest to end the occupation and suffering of Palestinians and Israelis," he said.
But key questions remained over whether Abbas would be able to make good on his vows to persuade militants to stop attacking Israelis in a 32-month-old Palestinian uprising for statehood.
A leader of Hamas vowed at at the conclusion of Wednesday's meeting that members of the Palestinian militant group would not lay down its arms despite Abbas' appeal.
"We will never be ready to lay down arms until the liberation of the last centimeter of the land of Palestine," senior Hamas official Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi told Reuters,
But Rantissi did not rule out further talks with Abbas' government.
Before the meeting, Sharon and Abbas posed for a photograph with Bush standing between them. The two Middle East leaders had avoided having their picture taken during their two previous face-to-face meetings last month in Jerusalem.
While cameras clicked this time, Sharon and Abbas ignored photographers' calls to shake hands outside King Abdullah II's palace in the Jordanian Red Sea port city of Aqaba. Later, at a joint press conference with Bush and Abdullah, the two shook hands.
"I welcome Prime Minister Sharon's pledge to begin removing the outposts immediately," Bush said. He praised Abbas for promising "his full efforts to end the full intifada."
The US president's goal is to put the "road map" to peace - the most ambitious Middle East peace effort in more than two years - into motion with initial confidence-building steps that carry heavy political risks for Sharon and Abbas. The commitments from both sides allow Israel and the Palestinians to move ahead down the politically risky road charted by the peace plan.
The road map calls for an end to violence and reciprocal confidence-building steps leading to Palestinian statehood by 2005.
The plan and Bush's first presidential visit to the Middle East underscored his new strategy of stronger personal involvement in peacemaking following victory in the U.S.-led war in Iraq that touched off anger in the Arab world.
But he also risked plunging into the Middle East quagmire where his predecessors became bogged down.
Bush promised training and support for a "new, restructured Palestinian security service," and said he would place longtime diplomat John Wolf at the head of a U.S. mission on the ground to help the parties and monitor progress.
"The journey we're taking is difficult, but there is no other choice," Bush said. "No leader of conscience can accept more months and years of humiliation, killing and mourning."
The new Palestinian leader renounced all terrorism against Israel, a crucial step sought by Bush as he brought the two sides together in a bid to advance Middle East peace.
"We repeat our denunciation and renunciation of terrorism against the Israelis wherever they might be," Abbas said, standing at a podium alongside Bush and Sharon.
Abbas also promised to "act vigorously" against incitement and hatred against Israel, including using Palestinian security forces.
Sharon said abandoning incitement, as Abbas pledged to do, is crucial. "There can be no peace" without it, he said. He said his government understands "the importance of territorial contiguity" in the West Bank, a key demand of Palestinians.
(China Daily June 5, 2003)
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