ISRAEL ENEMIES TO HOLD CONFERENCE

Blair in landmark talks with Jewish settlers Sat Jan 12, 4:26 PM ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) - International Middle East envoy Tony Blair held landmark talks with Jewish settler representatives this week, their main lobby group announced on Saturday. It's the first time that an international figure of this rank has sat down with settler representatives, the Yesha Council said.The meeting with Yesha secretary general Danny Dayan took place in a Jerusalem hotel and also involved members of the Israeli parliament from the religious and ultra-nationalist right as well as one from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's centre-right Kadima party.The settler representatives told Blair that Olmert had no mandate to negotiate a peace deal with the Palestinians that required the dismantling of settlements in the occupied West Bank, Israeli participants in the meeting said.

The former British premier retorted that nothing can stop the relaunching of the peace process.His meeting with the settlers came hot on the heels of a first visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories by US President George W. Bush during which he said he was very hopeful that a final peace deal could be reached before he leaves office in January next year.Blair represents the so-called Quartet of major players in the Middle East peace process -- the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, as well as the United States.Washington has made clear that any peace agreement will have to take into account realities on the ground although the international community regards all settlements on occupied land as illegal.Some 470,000 Jewish settlers have made their homes in the occupied West Bank since Israel seized the territory in 1967, 200,000 of them in annexed Arab east Jerusalem.

Jordan king urges clearer timetable for Mideast talks Sat Jan 12, 4:25 PM ET

AMMAN (AFP) - Jordan's King Abdullah II told President George W. Bush on Saturday that there needs to be a clearer timetable for renewed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians if they are to bear fruit. The king told Bush in a telephone call that there is a need for the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations to proceed within clear mechanisms and a timeframe that would lead to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, the palace said.He added that it was important to sustain the present American and international momentum to advance peace.

Bush, who is currently in the Gulf on the latest leg of a Middle East tour, had rung the king to brief him on his talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders earlier in the week, the palace said.The US president stressed his administration's commitment to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the basis of a two-state solution, it added.During his first visit as president to Israel and the Palestinian territories, Bush had expressed confidence that a final peace deal was achievable before he leaves office in January next year.Peace talks between the two sides were relaunched at a conference in Annapolis outside Washington in November.

US admits Mideast peace deal hangs on fate of Gaza Sat Jan 12, 2:34PM ET

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) - A senior US official acknowledged on Saturday that an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal would depend on the fate of Gaza, which is controlled by the Islamist movement Hamas. Hamas which evicted moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah faction from Gaza in June after a week of bloodshed, meanwhile, dismissed US President George W. Bush's vision of a Palestinian state.The US official, who declined to be named, said the fate of Bush's targeted peace deal by the end of this year depended on Abbas taking back control of the Gaza Strip.I don't think in the long term that an agreement is going to work if Hamas continues to control Gaza, he said.That's why we repeatedly said that the Palestinian Authority should resume its responsibility for the government in Gaza as well, he said. Exactly how that is going to work I don't know, I can't predict the future.

The official also drew a distinction between any Israeli-Palestinian agreement and its actual implementation. It seems that it will take some time, he cautioned.The parties will have to agree on how they want to structure the agreement, but I think that there have been general thoughts that there will be first a framework and later a comprehensive agreement.This will all play out in quite a period of time.Dismissed Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya, meanwhile, rejected what he termed Bush's vision of a rump state, in a speech to Palestinian pilgrims at a ceremony to mark their return from the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.Bush called in Israel on Thursday for an end to the four-decade-old Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and for the two sides to make the tough choices needed for a final peace deal.The US president also called for new mechanisms including compensation to resolve the issue of Palestinian refugees, one of the thorniest of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Haniya hit out at the president's suggestion that a peace agreement might exclude the refugees returning to the homes they fled in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.We reject his denial of the right of return of refugees and his position on Jerusalem, Haniya said.We do not accept that 11,000 (Palestinian) prisoners stay in Israeli jails and that (Jewish) settlements remain in Palestinian territory, the Hamas official added.Haniya also called for an end to security cooperation between Israel and Abbas.Another Hamas leader, Ahmad Bahar, accused Bush, Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of conspiring against the Palestinian cause and the armed struggle.On Friday, Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan said the movement would not be bound by any agreement that Abbas and Olmert reached, adding that the proposed deal fell far short of Palestinian aspirations.

Bush gets warm official welcome in Bahrain amid protests by Ali Khalil Sat Jan 12, 12:10 PM ET

MANAMA (AFP) - US President George W. Bush was warmly welcomed by leaders in Bahrain on Saturday during a tour of Gulf Arab allies to rally support against Iran and for the Middle East peace process, although about 250 demonstrators took to the streets. Bush was greeted at the airport by King Hamad, who led a red-carpet welcome for the first US president to visit the small Gulf kingdom which serves as home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet.Bush, who flew in from Kuwait, was later honoured at an official greeting ceremony at one of the royal palaces, where King Hamad hailed the United States as a friend, an ally and a partner.

The monarch expressed pride in Manama's longstanding links with the US Navy, which he said had secured freedom of navigation in the Gulf.Tight security measures were evident in Manama as Bahraini police and special forces deployed along the main roads festooned with US and Bahraini flags.Bahrain is a major non-NATO ally of Washington and has a free trade agreement with the United States.Bush warned while in Israel on the first leg of a Middle East trip that Iran posed a threat to world peace and should not be allowed to develop the know-how to build a nuclear weapon. Iran denies seeking nuclear arms.He was expected to hold talks with King Hamad and visit the Fifth Fleet base in Manama, before travelling on to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. His week-long Middle East tour ends in Egypt on Wednesday.

But many members of the majority Shiite community in Bahrain have made clear they do not share the government's enthusiasm about Bush's visit to the Gulf archipelago, which is ruled by a Sunni dynasty.About 250 people picketed near the US embassy in Manama after Bush's arrival to voice their opposition to his government's policies in the Middle East and support for Israel.Get out of Bahrain, criminal, read one of the banners raised by the protesters. No to the US military presence in Bahrain, America cares for oil, not democracy, said other banners.Dozens of security men were deployed around the embassy as the sit-in took place some 500 metres (yards) away.The protest was organised by several Sunni and Shiite political groupings, mainly from the opposition, but including some Sunni Islamist groups close to the government.We want to tell the US president that he is not welcome, and that he is not a friend of Arab and Bahraini peoples, said Ibrahim Sharif, secretary general of the leftist National Democratic Action Association.President Bush praises the Bahraini regime saying it is democratic and reformist... This is just politicians complimenting each other, Sharif told AFP.

Two other protests took place on the eve of Bush's arrival.

Bush's tour comes amid an escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran after Washington reported a weekend face-off in the Strait of Hormuz entrance to the Gulf.Tehran accuses Washington of using the incident in the waterway -- a vital conduit for energy supplies -- as a propaganda stunt to paint Iran in a bad light during the Middle East trip. In his weekly radio address, delivered from Kuwait, Bush called upon Arab nations to play their role in helping the Palestinians reach a peace deal and achieving an overall reconciliation with Israel. They have a responsibility both to support (Palestinian) president (Mahmud) Abbas, prime minister (Salam) Fayyad, and other Palestinian leaders as they work for peace, and to work for a larger reconciliation between Israel and the Arab world, said the president. Before Kuwait he made his first presidential trip to Israel and the West Bank, where he said he believed an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty would be signed within a year.

Anti-Israel Palestinian groups to hold Syria conference JAN 13,08

DAMASCUS (AFP) - Hamas and other Syria-based Palestinian groups are to hold a conference later this month focused on Palestinian refugees and resistance against Israel, a spokesman said on Sunday. The national Palestinian conference will be held January 23-25 in Damascus under the banner of Palestinian rights and unity, conference spokesman Anwar Raja told AFP.Participants are to discuss the right of Palestinian refugees to return to homes they fled when the state of Israel was founded in 1948, and resistance against Israel, said Raja.They will also discuss efforts to revive inter-Palestinian dialogue which foundered after Hamas seized control of Gaza in June from Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, he added.Abbas and chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qurei are to be invited to the conference organised by Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, said Raja, who is a PFLP-GC member.

Syria-based Palestinian groups had wanted initially to convene the conference in November to coincide with the Arab-Israeli peace meeting that was held in Annapolis, outside Washington, but they later scrapped the plan.The Damascus meeting will follow a landmark visit to the Middle East this month by US President George W. Bush to push Palestinian and Israeli leaders to reach a peace deal before the end of the year.Hamas is opposed to any deal struck between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and has dismissed Bush's vision of a Palestinian state as falling far short of Palestinian aspirations.

Bush assured Israel over Gaza violence: Olmert Sun Jan 13, 6:12 AM ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) - US President George W. Bush has assured Israel that no peace deal with the Palestinians will be implemented until violence from Hamas-run Gaza stops, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Sunday. Bush gave the assurance during his first presidential visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories last week during which he said he was very hopeful the two sides could sign a peace treaty within a year, Olmert said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting.He repeated the United States' complete commitment that the implementation of an agreement between us and the Palestinian Authority will not be carried out on the ground before the full implementation of the roadmap on all its commitments regarding Israel's security, both in the Gaza Strip and in Judaea and Samaria (the West Bank), he said.There is no separation between the Gaza Strip and Judaea and Samaria when it comes to Palestinian commitments, Olmert said.The roadmap is an internationally drafted peace blueprint launched in 2003 which calls on Israel to halt settlement activity in occupied territory and on the Palestinians to boost security.

Olmert also said that Bush had accepted an invitation to return to Israel for the celebrations in early May marking 60 years since the founding of the Jewish state.The president will return on an official visit to take part in the extremely significant celebrations of the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence, he said.And he reiterated his call for the wildcat settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank -- those not authorised by the Israeli government -- to be dismantled as part of the renewed peace efforts.The fact that the illegal outposts are still standing despite a decision to remove them by two governments is a disgrace and intolerable, a senior government official quoted him as telling ministers from his Kadima party ahead of the cabinet meeting.Gaza has been outside the control of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas since the Islamist Hamas movement seized control of the territory after a week of deadly street battles last June.

On a near daily basis, Israel comes under mortar and rocket fire from Gaza and the army carries out air and ground operations inside the coastal strip.On Saturday, a senior US official said that an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal would depend on whether Abbas was able to resume authority over Gaza -- the smaller half of the Palestinians' promised state.I don't think in the long term that an agreement is going to work if Hamas continues to control Gaza, the official told reporters on condition of anonymity. That's why we repeatedly said that the Palestinian Authority should resume its responsibility for the government in Gaza as well.

Bush says Iran threat to world security By Matt Spetalnick
JAN 13,08

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Sunday that Iran was threatening security around the world by backing extremists and urged its Gulf Arab allies to confront this danger before it is too late.Speaking in Abu Dhabi, the third stop of his tour of Arab allies, Bush said that Shi'ite Muslim Iran was the world's number one sponsor of terrorism and accused it of undermining peace by supporting the Hezbollah guerrilla group in Lebanon, Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and Shi'ite militants in Iraq.Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere. So the United States is strengthening our longstanding security commitments with our friends in the Gulf and rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late, he said in his keynote speech which, with the auditorium two-thirds full, received only polite applause at the end.Iran is today the world's leading state sponsor of terror. It sends hundreds of millions of dollars to extremists around the world while its own people face repression and economic hardship at home.

Returning to familiar themes that have been at the core of Bush's approach during seven years in the White House, the president praised democratization efforts in the Arab world, but acknowledged some setbacks. He did not name any country but cited arrests of political opponents.Earlier in the day, Bush visited the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain amid new tensions with Iran over an incident in which Washington says its ships were harassed in the Strait of Hormuz.The United States says Iranian boats threatened its warships on January 6 along the vital route for crude oil shipments from the world's biggest producing region.

DEADLY SERIOUSLY

Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, commander of the Fifth Fleet, made it clear to Bush his forces took the incident deadly seriously, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters.All of the people in the military remember what's happened in the past such as the USS Cole, she said, referring to the attack on the U.S. warship in Yemen in 2000 using a boat packed with explosives.During a stop in Israel at the start of his Middle East trip last week, Bush warned Iran of serious consequences if it attacked U.S. ships and said all options were on the table.Tehran has dismissed the incident as routine and accused the United States of exaggerating it for propaganda purposes.We exercised restraint and we very calmly announced that this was a routine procedure but they tried to ... raise this issue at the same time when Mr Bush was traveling to the region in order to paint Iran in a negative light, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters.

On the visit to Bahrain, Bush entered a U.S. naval mess hall to loud applause and shouted good morning to the military personnel before joining them for breakfast.In Abu Dhabi, Bush had talks with UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan and Vice President and ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. In the evening, Bush flew by helicopter to the president's desert camp for a dinner of grilled meat and pita bread freshly made by Bedouin women, where he inspected half a dozen royal falcons.He visits Dubai on Monday before going to Saudi Arabia and Egypt to drum up support for Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts and boost U.S. efforts to isolate Tehran.The Bush administration has kept up a campaign of rhetoric despite a U.S. intelligence report in December that concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear arms program in 2003.Tehran says it wants nuclear technology for civilian reasons and agreed on Sunday to clarify the remaining questions about nuclear work in the next month, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said. Bush insists that Iran remains a threat. Washington's Arab allies say they share U.S. concerns about Tehran's growing regional influence but want containment without resort to military force. Iran's Hosseini said U.S. efforts to isolate the Islamic Republic had failed as Gulf Arabs had been actively engaging it. (Additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl in Iran and Tabassum Zakaria in Abu Dhabi, Writing by Lin Noueihed; Editing by Giles Elgood)