Monday, June 17, 2002

Sharon Rejects Proposals for Interim Palestinian State
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today rejected the idea of a provisional Palestinian state, which President Bush is said to be considering as part of a plan he is expected to announce this week in hopes of reviving peace talks.

"The conditions are not right for the establishment of any kind of Palestinian state," Mr. Sharon told his cabinet as he reported on his visit with Mr. Bush last week.

Reports from Washington suggested that the Bush administration was wrestling with several ideas — including the possible creation of some kind of interim Palestinian state without setting the final borders — since Mr. Bush met recently with Mr. Sharon, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud al-Faisal.

The proposal has elicited little enthusiasm. Not only did Mr. Sharon reject it but Palestinian Authority officials criticized it over the weekend and their top negotiator, Saeb Erekat, warned that such a step might only increase Palestinian frustration if not accompanied by a timetable for a state in the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip, which were occupied by Israel in the 1967 war.

Further objections came today from Egypt, long a close ally of the United States. "This proposal means that today such a state exists, but tomorrow it might not," Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said in Cairo. "It's incomprehensible and no one has ever heard of such a thing."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/17/international/middleeast/17MIDE.html

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