BRITAIN/THE MIDDLE EAST: British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw will today pursue ways of ensuring effective and smooth Palestinian presidential elections during meetings with Israeli leaders in Jerusalem.
British officials said Mr Straw wanted to hear how Israel would help ensure the elections' smooth running, joining a concerted global effort to revive the Middle East peace process.
He would also press the Palestinians on a visit tomorrow to the Palestinian territories to reform their security services to help end violence, they said.
"Making sure the elections take place properly and effectively requires the Palestinians to do more on security ... and for the Israelis to loosen their grip on the West Bank and Gaza," said a senior British official on the sidelines of a conference on Iraq in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
After addressing the elections, attention will turn to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza, a plan which has been attacked by Mr Sharon's opponents and by many Palestinians.
"I want to hear what [ Mr Sharon] has got to say about disengagement from Gaza," Mr Straw said.
Mr Straw meets Mr Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and other senior politicians today before going to Ramallah in the West Bank tomorrow. There he will meet Palestine Liberation Organisation head, Mr Mahmoud Abbas, and Prime Minister Ahmed Korei.
He will also lay a wreath at Yasser Arafat's grave.
The coincidence of Mr Arafat's death and the end of the US election race has sparked talk of a new opportunity to try to bring Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table to solve their decades-old conflict.
President Bush has pledged to use US clout to help create a Palestinian state in his second four-year term. Outgoing US Secretary of State Colin Powell visited the region earlier this week and obtained a promise from Israel to loosen restrictions on Palestinians' travel to permit them to campaign and cast ballots in their January poll.
Pursuing peace in the Middle East has also become a priority for Britain's Tony Blair, plagued at home by the fallout from the Iraq war.
Mr Straw, who travels to Israel from the conference, declined to confirm media reports that Mr Blair plans to visit the region next month. - (Reuters)
Peter Hirschberg adds from Jerusalem: For the first time since succeeding Yasser Arafat as head of the PLO, former prime minister Mahmoud Abbas yesterday touched on the substantive issues at the heart of the Middle East conflict, telling the Palestinian parliament he would follow in Mr Arafat's footsteps and insist on the right of return for all refugees.
"We promise you [ Arafat] that our heart will not rest until we achieve the right of return for our people and end the tragic refugee issue," Mr Abbas said in Ramallah.
Mr Abbas, who was chosen on Monday by the ruling Fatah party as its candidate for leader of the Palestinian Authority in elections to be held on January 9th, has steered clear of policy issues since Mr Arafat died on November 11th.
But with elections coming up, and with a number of challengers beginning to emerge - possibly even the West Bank Fatah leader, Mr Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life terms in an Israeli jail - he feels the need to outline clear-cut positions.
Perceived by some Palestinians as too willing to compromise with Israel - shortly after he became prime minister in 2003 he called for an end to the armed Intifada - Mr Abbas's views are actually not dissimilar to those held by Mr Arafat. He wants an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital; the dismantling of Jewish settlements; and recognition of the right of return for several million refugees and their descendants who reside in Arab states.
Israelis viewed Mr Arafat's insistence on recognition of the right of return for refugees as a major obstacle to any final peace settlement. They argue that this would essentially mean the end of the Jewish state, since Palestinians would then be in the majority.