Sharon says 'no' to peace plan
2004-09-15 12:19
Jerusalem - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in an interview published on Wednesday that Israel has no intention of sticking to the United States-backed "road map" peace plan it endorsed last year.
Sharon also said that there may be no further troop pullbacks after Israel carries out its so-called unilateral "disengagement" from the Palestinians - a withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and four small West Bank settlements in 2005.
"It is very possible that after the evacuation (disengagement), there will be a long period when nothing else happens," Sharon told the Yediot Ahronot newspaper, commenting for the time in detail on Israel's plans after a Gaza withdrawal.
Asked whether he was talking about decades of standstill, he said: "It's impossible to say."
Continued war on terrorism
However, Sharon said that as long as there is no significant shift in the Palestinian leadership and policy, "Israel will continue its war on terrorism, and will stay in the territories (of the West Bank) that will remain after the implementation of disengagement."
The road map, launched last year, envisioned a Palestinian state by 2005. The plan did not spell out the borders of that state, but senior US officials have said that Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza must come to an end.
US President George W Bush has since said that it would be "unrealistic" to expect Israel to remove large Israeli population centres in the West Bank - a statement seen by Sharon as backing for his plan to keep large West Bank settlement blocs in any future deal with the Palestinians.
"Today, we are also not following the road map. I am not ready for this," he said.
Confirming Palestinian concerns
Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said Sharon's comments confirmed Palestinian concerns that the disengagement plan is a ploy to cement Israel's control over large areas of the West Bank.
US and European Union officials have assured the Palestinians that they only back the disengagement plan as part of the road map.
"I think that those who saw the Gaza disengagement as an opportunity because they counted that it would be part of the road map should really understand that their good intentions are one thing, and that Sharon's good intentions are another," Erekat said.
"Sharon's intention is to destroy the road map and to dictate his long-term interim solution of Gaza as a prison and 40% of the West Bank within wall, and this will not fly," he said.
- AP