UN Secretary General Kofi Annan met Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas today to help nurture budding Middle East peacemaking on his first visit to the region in four years.
Mr Annan told reporters he intended to promote a long stymied international "road map" peace plan for a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza alongside a secure Israel.
But Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon responded that no talks were possible until Mr Abbas shut down Palestinian militant groups. Mr Abbas, in an interview with Israeli television yesterday, predicted he would win militants over to a formal ceasefire at talks in Cairo this week and pledged to ensure Mr Sharon could carry out a planned pullout from Gaza in safety this summer.
Peace hopes have revived since Mr Abbas succeeded Yassir Arafat and along with Mr Sharon proclaimed a mutual halt to hostilities at a groundbreaking summit last month.
Mr Abbas is keen to start "road map" talks soon, but Mr Sharon is preoccupied with elaborate preparations to remove resistant settlers from occupied Gaza while vowing to keep much larger West Bank settlements he views as strategically vital.
Mr Sharon has commissioned a ministerial committee to recommend how to remove dozens of unauthorised Jewish settlement outposts in the West Bank but told Mr Annan any action would probably await the Gaza withdrawal.
The international community sees all Jewish settlement on occupied land as illegal and an impediment to peacemaking. Israeli governments past and present have disputed this.