President praises 'vision' of Abbas

US: President Bush yesterday provided an extraordinary display of support for the visiting Palestinian Prime Minister, Mr Mahmoud…

US: President Bush yesterday provided an extraordinary display of support for the visiting Palestinian Prime Minister, Mr Mahmoud Abbas, by declaring that, along with Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, the two leaders could bring a "bright future" to their peoples.

At a joint White House appearance after hosting Mr Abbas for the first time, Mr Bush called Mr Abbas "this good man". After Mr Abbas had delivered his prepared remarks, Mr Bush patted him on the back, telling him "good job".

He said his guest had "vision, courage and determination".

The President also praised Mr Abbas's Minister of Finance as "a man of his word", and his Minister of Security as "a good, solid man". In short, he said, "I am gaining confidence in the Palestinian Prime Minister and his great cabinet".

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All of this could not have contrasted more sharply with Mr Bush's depiction last year of the regime of the Palestinian Authority's President Yasser Arafat as being compromised by terrorism. Indeed, he would not be standing side by side with Mr Abbas, Mr Bush said, were it not for his belief in the Palestinian Prime Minister's commitment to "fight off the terrorist activity".

Such praise notwithstanding, Mr Abbas himself repeatedly stresses that he defers to and reports to Mr Arafat, and it is Mr Arafat who enjoys the support and confidence of most Palestinians.

Beyond the praise, Mr Bush outlined positions that accorded with many of the demands Mr Abbas put to him during their talks. He urged Israel to remove the checkpoints that limit Palestinian movement between West Bank cities; hours earlier an Israeli announcement had promised that some checkpoints would be dismantled.

He endorsed Mr Abbas's objections to the so-called "security fence" that Israel is constructing, mainly inside the West Bank.

"I think the wall is a problem. It is very difficult to develop confidence with a wall snaking through the West Bank."

Mr Bush also said he would continue to discuss the issue of Palestinian prisoner releases with both sides.

Mr Sharon is due in Washington on Tuesday, and has indicated that 400-600 prisoners will be freed soon, including some from Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Many of those expected to go free are detainees who have never been charged, but some were convicted of offences linked to attacks on Israelis. Others come from prominent positions in Hamas.

There have also been reports, thus far unconfirmed, that as many as 3,000 prisoners may be released - almost half of all those being held - as part of a wider agreement which would see Mr Azzam Azzam, an Israeli jailed by Egypt for spying, also released.

Perhaps most dramatically, Mr Bush referred twice to his desire for "the need to end settlements", placing this call in the context of the Palestinian leadership's need to root out terrorism.

If terrorism was thwarted, he said, then Israel would have the confidence to move forward on the settlement issue. In the meantime, he called for further progress by Israel in removing illegal settlement outposts.

Underlining the US commitment to Palestinian statehood, Mr Bush also announced the establishment of a joint Palestinian Economic Development Group to help build a "solid economic foundation for a free and sovereign Palestinian state".

Mr Abbas, for his part, pledged to continue "implementing our security and reform obligations" to bring "security for all".

He also called on Israel to lift the siege on Mr Arafat in Ramallah (Mr Bush, tellingly, had no comment on this), fully freeze settlement building, dismantle the new security wall, agree a "just solution" to the Palestinian refugee issue and generally move ahead less hesitantly.

The new era required "the courageous logic of peace, not the suspicious logic of conflict".

Mr Sharon has met Mr Abbas four times in recent weeks, and has praised his commitment to ending the armed intifada. However he is demanding an aggressive campaign to dismantle Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other extremist groups, a demand echoed by Mr Bush.

Mr Abbas is resisting the pressure for such action, declaring yesterday that where Israel's "military might" had failed he had fostered the current relative calm through internal dialogue.

In an announcement plainly timed to demonstrate goodwill, Israel said shortly before the Bush-Abbas meeting that it would soon withdraw its forces from two more West Bank cities, following the pullback earlier this month in Bethlehem - winning immediate praise from Mr Bush.

Given the relative calm since most Palestinian factions agreed an intifada ceasefire three weeks ago, Israel also said it would issue 8,500 more permits for Palestinians to work in Israel.

Until the "second intifada" erupted almost three years ago, more than 100,000 Palestinians worked legally in Israel

Meanwhile, in more of the sporadic violence that has dogged the ceasefire, a five-year-old Palestinian boy was killed by machine-gun fire from an Israeli armoured personnel carrier just inside the northern West Bank.

Mahmud Qabha was killed and two of his sisters were wounded when their car was hit by heavy gunfire. Eyewitnesses said the shooting was unprovoked.

The Israeli army immediately apologized, saying the shooting was the result of "an operational mistake", and that the gun had gone off accidentally.