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Arab sources: Bush plans
new peace initiative

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Friday, October 5, 2001

CAIRO Ñ The Bush administration plans to launch a new initiative to relaunch peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians.

Arab diplomatic sources said the plans were to have been implemented late last month but were stymied by the Sept. 11 suicide attacks on New York and Washington. They said the administration has reassured Arab leaders, including Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, that the initiative will be renewed shortly.

"I make no secret when I say that the current U.S. moves were supposed to take place earlier had it not been for the Sept. 11 events," Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said. "What I see is that there is a realization of the importance of solving the Palestinian question regardless of what happened on Sept. 11."

The U.S. initiative will be presented by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns when he arrives for a tour of the Middle East over the weekend. Burns is expected to visit Israel, the Palestinian Authority and several Arab capitals.

The sources said the U.S. plan called for an independent Palestinian state, division of Jerusalem and the halt in all Israeli construction in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The sources said Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been in the forefront of efforts to pressure Washington to renew Arab-Israeli peace efforts. The sources said both countries warned that such an effort was vital to garner Arab support for any offensive against terrorism.

Israeli leaders are said to have been dismayed by the U.S. initiative.

Officials said the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was taken by surprise by the Bush administration. But the officials said the State Department has denied any intention to issue a new peace plan for the Middle East.

The reports were relayed as the West Bank and Gaza Strip continued to be rocked by violence. Six Palestinians were killed in an Israeli military counteroffensive in northern Gaza on Wednesday.

In the West Bank, two Israelis were injured during a religious celebration in Hebron on Wednesday. The Israelis were struck by Palestinian fire from a nearby Arab neighborhood in the city.

In Jerusalem, two Israelis were injured in a Palestinian ambush. The attack was said to have been carried out by the same Palestinian squad that killed an Israeli in northern Jerusalem last month.

In southern Lebanon, Israeli and Hizbullah gunners exchanged fire on Wednesday. The fire was prompted by a Hizbullah shelling of an Israeli military position, the first since the Sept. 11 suicide attacks in the United States.

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