Annan Meets Abbas in Visit to Push Mideast Peace

March 14, 2005
The New York Times
Original Source: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html?

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday and said the world was determined to nurture Middle East peace moves budding after years in deep freeze.
On his way, Annan laid a wreath at the grave of Abbas's predecessor Yasser Arafat, lionized by Palestinians as the founder of their drive for statehood but shunned by Israel and the United States who accused him of being an obstacle to peace.
Annan, on his first visit to the region in almost four years, went to the West Bank after talks in Jerusalem Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. He will also attend the opening Tuesday of Israel's revamped Holocaust museum.
He told reporters he intended to promote a long stymied international ``road map'' peace plan for a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza alongside a secure Israel.
``The international community is determined to work with both sides to press for the implementation of the road map and work to ensure that the day when a Palestinian state is established side by side with Israel will not be (far off),'' Annan said during a pause in his discussions with Abbas.
Sharon told Annan Sunday that Israel would not embark on the road map until Abbas shut down Palestinian militant groups.
Sharon aims to evacuate occupied Gaza this summer but to do so he must first outwit rightist foes now blocking a parliamentary majority for the 2005 budget. He must pass it by March 31 to escape snap elections that would shelve the pullout.
Abbas, in an interview with Israeli television Sunday, predicted he would win militants over to a formal cease-fire at talks in Cairo this week and pledged to ensure Sharon could carry out a planned pullout from Gaza in safety this summer.
ONE-YEAR TRUCE PROPOSAL
Militant sources said Monday Egypt had proposed that the armed factions approve a one-year truce with Israel. Militants have observed an informal ``calm'' since soon after Abbas's Jan. 9 election but avoided a formal truce commitment.
They have protested at what many Palestinians including Abbas see as Israeli foot-dragging in implementing summit promises such as a pullback from some West Bank cities and release of Palestinian prisoners.
Israel says it cannot feel secure as long as Abbas sticks to a policy of co-opting militants rather than disarming them.
Peace hopes have revived since Abbas won election to succeed Arafat and along with Sharon proclaimed a mutual halt to hostilities at a groundbreaking summit last month.
Annan has been active in promoting the ``road map'' drafted two years ago by a U.S.-led quartet of peace brokers also comprising Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.
Abbas is keen to launch road map negotiations soon but Sharon is preoccupied with looming resistance by diehard Gaza settlers and has vowed to keep much larger West Bank settlements he views as strategically vital.
Palestinians want all of both the territories, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, for an independent state.
Sharon Sunday commissioned a ministerial committee to recommend how to remove dozens of unauthorized Jewish settlement outposts in the West Bank but told Annan any action would probably await the Gaza withdrawal.
The international community sees all Jewish settlement on occupied land as illegal and an impediment to peacemaking. Israeli governments past and present have disputed this.