Bush to attend Mideast summit next week

Mr George W. Bush is likely to hold a summit with the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers in Jordan next week to promote …

Mr George W. Bush is likely to hold a summit with the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers in Jordan next week to promote a US-backed "road map" for Middle East peace.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom made the announcement at a Euro Mediterranean meeting in Greece today after his country approved the plan in an historic step accepting the creation of a Palestinian state.

"We think it is very important that the president of the US is coming to our region to move us forward. The meeting will take place maybe at the end of next week," Mr Shalom said.

Before a trilateral summit, Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon is expected to hold his second meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.

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At their previous meeting, Mr Sharon offered to pull Israeli forces out of the northern Gaza Strip and hand the area over to Palestinian security control in a test of Mr Abbas's ability to rein in militants under the peace deal, Israeli officials said.

But no agreement was reached, and the Palestinians demanded that Israel first accept the road map.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who reluctantly appointed a prime minister under international pressure to carry out democratic and security reforms, said today that Mr Abbas and Mr Sharon would meet within 48 hours.

Israel had resisted for weeks before accepting the road map, which calls initially for an end to violence, Palestinian moves against militants, dismantling of Jewish settlements established after March 2001 and a freeze in settlement expansion.

But Mr Sharon bent under heavy US pressure, pushing the peace proposal - and its call for the establishment of a Palestinian state by 2005 - through his bickering right-wing cabinet.

But the decision was accompanied by reaffirmation of Israeli reservations about the plan and rejection of any right for Palestinian refugees to return to Israel.