U.S. official: American road map monitors will report, not judge

Three U.S. generals will monitor Israeli and Palestinian compliance with the road map for peace, but won't act as judges, a senior U.S. official said Saturday.

The same sources also said that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans frequent Mideast trips as the sides attempt to fulfill their objective of reaching a peace deal by the end of 2008.

Negotiations on core issues - borders, Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees - are to begin in coming days. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed on the eve of President George W. Bush's visit to the region to instruct their negotiating teams to hold talks on those issues.

According to the deal, which was first reported in Haaretz earlier this week, all the core issues in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians for a final status agreement will be discussed in a special committee headed by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qureia.

Such talks were to have started immediately after a U.S.-hosted Mideast conference in November, but the sides got bogged down quickly in recriminations over Israeli construction in East Jerusalem and criticism over Palestinian security performance.

Under the arrangement outlined Saturday by the senior U.S. official, Qureia and Livni would from now on be shielded from distractions and be left to focus on the core issues.

Instead, a three-way committee headed by Lt. Gen. William M. Fraser III, a U.S. air force general, will now deal with grievances, mainly noncompliance with the road map peace plan, which requires Israel to freeze settlement building and the Palestinians to disarm militants.

However, the general's mandate falls short of that of a judge, said the U.S. official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.

Fraser, 55, who has accompanied Rice on many of her foreign trips, will send his findings back to Washington, the official said. "The judging... would be done at a higher level," he said.

"Sometimes we will do that in private with the parties, sometimes in public," he added.

The general will be based in Washington, but will make frequent trips to the region. He accompanied Bush and Rice on their trip earlier this week, and is expected back in two weeks, the official said.

The U.S. official said Fraser's committee "allows us to have a structured conversation, with a three-star general on our side, who has got experience in security, listening to both sides... and then allowing important judgments to be made in Washington."

Government spokesman Mark Regev said that Israel "accepts the U.S. monitoring role and is committed to meeting its road map obligations." Under the U.S.-backed road map for peace, Israel must halt settlement construction. But Israel insists this does not refer to construction in East Jerusalem, which it annexed after the 1967 Six-Day War but which Palestinians claim for their future capital.

Fraser is the latest addition to what has become a trio of U.S. generals involved in Mideast talks.

During the November peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, the Bush administration appointed former NATO commander James Jones, a retired Marine Corps general, as a security envoy.

Jones, also based in Washington, will participate in talks on security arrangements in a final peace deal, such as the possible deployment of foreign forces and drawing defensible borders for Israel.

The veteran in the group is Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, who is helping train and equip the Palestinian security forces. Initially, Dayton was dispatched after the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip in September 2005, and was to help beef up the Palestinian side of border crossings between Gaza and Israel. That assignment was canceled by the violent Hamas takeover of Gaza in June.

The U.S. official said Rice will also visit frequently this year to check on progress. He noted that the secretary visited the region eight times in 2007, and that he expected a similar intensity in 2008. Bush said he'd be back at least once, for Israel's 60th birthday, and perhaps more often.

However, critics said it's still not enough.

Mofaz calls for an interim PA state before final peace accord

Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz said Saturday Israel should reach an agreement with the Palestinian Authority on an interim state before signing a final peace deal.

Mofaz, a former defense minister and Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, said that the interim deal should grant a provisional Palestinian state temporary borders, and should not include a settlement on two of the core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the fate of Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees.

"This kind of agreement would not include the issues of the refugees and Jerusalem," he said, "but would guarantee a Palestinian state with temporary borders. An immediate move toward a final status agreement will only postpone the process and delay it."

The transportation minister was speaking at a conference hosted by the Geneva Initiative, a peace proposal that was launched in 2003 by prominent Israeli and Palestinian politicians.

	Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz. (Ofer Vaknin)