Sharon says Ma'aleh Adumim will be inside fence

Hours before departing for the United States, where Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is scheduled to discuss the disengagement plan with U.S. President George W. Bush, Sharon said Monday evening that the West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim would be included in the "Jerusalem envelope" plan.

The Jerusalem envelope is the part of the West Bank separation fence being built between the capital and the West Bank.

Sharon left for the United States around 2 A.M. Monday, and will be meeting with Bush's national security advisor Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday and with Bush on Wednesday.

Speaking in Ma'aleh Adumim, the largest settlement in the West Bank, at the start of the traditional Moroccan Mimouna festivities marking the end of Passover, Sharon said that the settlement, which is adjacent to Jerusalem, would remain under Israeli control.

"Ma'aleh Adumim will continue to be built," Sharon said. He also named five other West Bank settlement areas that would remain under Israel's sovereignty: the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, Givat Ze'ev, Ariel, Kiryat Arba, and enclaves in the West Bank city of Hebron.

"Ariel, Gush Etzion, and Givat Ze'ev will remain under Israeli control, and will continue to develop and strengthen. Hebron and Kiryat Arba will be strong," Sharon said.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said no peace can exist unless Palestinians control the West Bank and Jerusalem as well as the Gaza Strip.

"With this statement, Sharon is closing the door before any Palestinian-Israeli peace deal," Erekat said Monday. "The withdrawal from Gaza cannot be exchanged for maintaining Israeli occupation in Jerusalem or in the West Bank."

Meanwhile, hundreds of people protesting the disengagement plan walked from Jerusalem toward Ben-Gurion International Airport, carrying torches and signs against withdrawal, Army Radio reported Monday night. The demonstrators are calling for right-wing parties to quit the government.

Earlier Monday, Bush and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said that they would welcome an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a positive step toward a Middle East peace agreement and a future Palestinian state.

"I think any withdrawal from the occupied territory is very highly appreciated," Mubarak told reporters following a private meeting at Bush's Texas ranch. "But I would like the withdrawal to coincide with the road map."

The talks mark the launch of 10 days of Middle East mediation for Bush, including talks in Washington with Sharon on Wednesday and Jordan's King Abdullah on April 21.

Speaking Monday, Bush warned that a Gaza withdrawal would not take the place of the internationally brokered road map to Middle East peace, which he unveiled in June 2003.

"If he [Sharon] were to decide to withdraw, it would be a positive development," Bush said at a news conference at his ranch. "We both are in agreement that if Israel makes a decision to withdraw, it doesn't replace the road map."

But, the president said, a Palestinian state would remain in jeopardy "if terrorists are willing to kill" in order to interrupt progress. "We can't let people blow up the process, but that's what's happening," he said.

"It's a very complicated problem," Mubarak added.

The Egyptian leader also pledged to Bush that his country would do "whatever it takes" to revive efforts to strike a peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians.

After discussing Israel's plan to leave the Gaza Strip, Bush offered an appeal for true peace in the entire Middle East, "not just a pause between wars."

"We also believe the future of the Middle East and the future of Iraq are closely linked," Bush told reporters. "The people of the greater Middle East have a right to be safe, secure, prosperous and free."

U.S. and Israeli officials last week reached a tentative agreement on key components of the Israeli plan, and sources said Bush is expected to back it as an interim step.

The two countries want to make sure the withdrawal does not allow the Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas to cement its grip over Palestinian affairs in Gaza, where the militants have been a powerful force.

Egypt has offered to secure its side of the border with the Strip, a move Israel sees as crucial to stemming the flow of weapons to Hamas.

While welcoming a pullout from occupied land, the Palestinians have said unless Israel leaves the West Bank entirely there is little hope of reviving the road map, which has been stalled by tit-for-tat Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said Monday that any U.S. guarantees regarding an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip that jeopardize final status negotiations with Israel would not be recognized by the Palestinians.

A senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Americans are resisting such assurances. Instead, he said, the Americans will say a final settlement has to be reached through negotiations.

"Any guarantees to Israel that affect the final status issues... are unacceptable and will be rejected," said Qureia following a meeting of the Palestinian cabinet in Ramallah on Monday.

"We warn, starting from now, that there should not be promises made at the expense of our issues... or at the expense of final status issues in particular," Qureia told reporters.

"We will not accept anything that will prejudice the outcome of permanent status negotiations... We are the side that needs assurances," he said.

Qureia said a Gaza withdrawal should be comprehensive, including an end to control of entry and exit points, which Sharon rejects, and should be followed by the same in the West Bank.

Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weisglass, and other Israeli officials including National Security Adviser Giora Eiland, and the prime minister's foreign policy adviser Shalom Turjeman met Sunday at the White House with deputy U.S. national security adviser Stephen Hadley and Elliot Abrams, a senior National Security Council aide, to work on letters of understanding to be signed and exchanged during the meeting.

Palestinian Authority Minister Saeb Erekat said that the Palestinians have relayed their concerns about the guarantees to American mediators. He said he had been assured that the United States will not take any steps that prejudice a final settlement.

Israel hopes that the announcement, as outlined below, will also include American support for the resettlement of Palestinian refugees within a future Palestinian state.

On Sunday, the Likud election committee decided to hold its planed referendum on Sharon's withdrawal plan on April 29.

On Monday night, Sharon visited the largest West Bank settlement - Ma'aleh Adumim, on the outskirts of Jerusalem - in for what the prime minister's bureau said was an effort to win support for the withdrawal plan.

Bush letter to say Israel won't be asked to go to '49 linesIsrael will not be asked in the future to withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines on the West Bank, according to a letter Bush may present to Sharon during their talks.

According to the letter, the determination of borders in a final status accord will take into consideration "demographic realities" on the ground.

Bush and Sharon will exchange letters that detail both Sharon's plan, and what America will provide in exchange for the Israeli pullout. After the meeting, Sharon and Bush will make statements from the White House Rose Garden.

The two leaders will meet in the residential wing of the White House, to emphasize Bush's support for Sharon. A proposal to hold the discussion at the presidential retreat in Camp David was rejected because of Israeli concern that it retains a negative image as the place where the Israeli-Palestinian peace process collapsed four years ago.

Sharon's letter to Bush will state that the prime minister intends to bring the separation plan to his cabinet and to the Knesset for approval. The letter says the plan includes the withdrawal of all Jewish settlements and Israel Defense Forces from the entire Gaza Strip, apart from the Philadelphi Route on the Egyptian border, and that it also calls for the evacuation of four Jewish settlements in the northern Samaria area of the West Bank.

Sharon's letter will reiterate Israel's commitment to the road map peace plan and to Bush's two-states vision, and it will emphasize that Israel's planned steps under the separation plan are consistent with the road map.

Bush's letter to Sharon will also contain the following:

* Reiteration of America's commitment to Israel's security and to the preservation of its strategic qualitative edge.

* A statement of commitment to the road map, and to the prevention of other diplomatic initiatives

* Recognition of Israel's right to self defense and its right, as need arises, to carry out anti-terror operations in areas from which its forces are to be withdrawn.

* A declaration that Palestinian refugees can be absorbed in the future in the Palestinian state, just as Jewish refugees from Arab states were absorbed in Israel.

Israeli officials believe the section of this letter from Bush referring to final status borders is highly significant. They believe it constitutes U.S. recognition of Israel's future annexation of West Bank settlement blocs and the negation of a right of Palestinian refugee return to Israel.

Israel has been pushing for a clearer wording to the letter, but the Americans have made it clear that it is difficult for them to include an outward statement against the right of return due to their relations with Europe and the Arab states.

Israel also expects that the Bush administration will support the planned route of the separation fence. In exchange for such support, Jerusalem has promised that no "enclaves" will be created that trap hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and that the West Bank city of Ariel will not be connected to the main separation fence.

	Prime Minister Ariel Sharon participating in the post-Passover Mimouna festivities at Ma'aleh Adumim on Monday night. (GPO)