Palestinian prime minister Mahmud Abbas said he would meet Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to discuss implementing a peace plan ahead of a three-way summit next week with US President George W. Bush. But with the first phase of the document in theory expiring this week, the roadmap has had little impact on the ground. "I will meet Ariel Sharon tomorrow to discuss the implementation of the roadmap," Abbas said after talks in Ramallah on the West Bank with Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio.
The second meeting between the two prime ministers since the international peace plan was published last month was initially due to take place on Wednesday but postponed, officially due to "scheduling problems".
Palestinian information minister Nabil Amr told AFP in Jericho the meeting would take place in Jerusalem, while another official said it would be late Thursday at a venue to be decided at the last moment for security reasons.
The three-phase plan drafted by the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia calls for an end to Israeli-Palestinian violence, a freeze on Jewish settlement activity on Palestinian land and an Israeli troop withdrawal.
The Israeli cabinet last Sunday approved the blueprint designed to pave the way for the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005, albeit with a list of 14 reservations.
But Abbas dismissed Israel's attempts at reshaping the plan once again and stressed the United States had made it clear the roadmap had to be implemented unchanged from the way it was submitted to both parties a month ago.
"We don't accept each side picking and choosing only those specific elements that are convenient for them in the roadmap," he said in an interview published by the Israeli daily Haaretz.
But he also admitted in the same interview that his part of the deal was not easy and warned that he could not deliver on his pledge to disarm militant groups "overnight".
He said the Palestinian security services in the West Bank had been "completely destroyed" in Israeli army raids and 70 percent destroyed in the Gaza Strip.
After a meeting with the Spanish foreign minister also in Ramallah, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat urged Spain -- a strong backer of the US-led war in Iraq -- to use its good relations with the White House in promoting implementation of the roadmap.
Bush is for the first time getting personally involved in the Middle East conflict in a bid to kickstart implementation of the ailing plan.
The US president will hold talks first with several Arab leaders in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on June 3, before hopping over the Red Sea for a summit with King Abdullah of Jordan in Aqaba, a White House spokesman said Wednesday.
Egypt said Abbas would also take part in the Sharm el-Sheikh talks.
While in the Jordanian resort on June 4, Bush is expected to meet both the Israeli and Palestinian premiers, although there was still no confirmation from any of the parties.
Bush hopes to get not only "a solid expression of support" from Arab leaders for the roadmap but also "a commitment" from them to help the Palestinians overhaul their security arrangements, to condemn 'terrorism' and to isolate groups behind 'extremist violence', said US Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The talks would mark Abbas's entry into the international arena, four weeks after his power-sharing post was created, and crown US-Israeli efforts to sideline Arafat, accused of running a corrupt Palestinian Authority and supporting hardline militants.
Ahead of the push for peace, violence continued on the ground Wednesday, although with less bloodshed.
A 15-year-old Palestinian was shot in the eye by Israeli troops who responded with gunfire to a group of young stone-throwers in the West Bank town of Tulkarem, Palestinian medical sources said.
Near the southern town of Hebron, an Israeli was lightly wounded as a Palestinian gunman opened fire on a bus, Israeli military sources said.
Israeli public radio reported that a home-made Qassam rocket was fired from the northern Gaza Strip on the nearby Israeli town of Sderot on Wednesday, without causing injury.
A Palestinian former member of Yasser Arafat's Force 17 elite guard was shot dead in a brutal revenge killing near the West Bank town of Ramallah on Wednesday, Palestinian security sources said.
Mahmum Zayed, 36, was shot six times in the head and chest in a killing initially blamed by Palestinian medical sources on the Israeli army, which was carrying out an incursion in the area just east of Ramallah.
In the Palestinian camp, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Arafat's Fatah faction, surprisingly welcomed Sharon's endorsement of the roadmap.
"The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are happy that Sharon and the Israeli government accepted the roadmap -- it is a good thing," spokesman Abu Mujahed told AFP by phone.
But if the roadmap was going to be effective, the Israeli army had to first stop assassinating the leaders of the 32-month Palestinian uprising, he said.
The Islamic group Hamas was less compromising in its stand, warning that next week's Middle East summits would fail unless the Palestinians were given their full rights.
"If these summits don't give the Palestinian people all their full rights, they will fail," Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin told AFP.
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Israeli soldiers raise their guns at local Palestinians in the West Bank city of Hebron next to a burnt shop and vehicle after two rival clans had been fighting, in clashes that left one Palestinian dead and destroyed shops.(AFP/Hazem Bader)