Sponsors of the roadmap peace plan for the Middle East insisted yesterday that they would not allow Israel's planned withdrawal of soldiers and settlers from Gaza to thwart a more comprehensive settlement.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has vowed to pull 8,000 settlers from all 21 settlements in Gaza and four isolated enclaves in the northern West Bank by the end of 2005.

"We are supporting disengagement on the condition that it is consistent with the roadmap, that it leads to the roadmap, that it is compatible to the two-state solution, that it is negotiated and coordinated with the Palestinian Authority and that Israel helps with reconstruction," the EU envoy to the Middle East peace process, Marc Otte, told a conference in Gaza.

Sharon unveiled the outlines of his disengagement plan last year when he said that Israel would unilaterally withdraw from parts of the occupied territories in the absence of a Palestinian partner for peace.

But since the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Sharon has said he is ready to involve the new Palestinian leadership under PLO chief Mahmud Abbas in the process.

"From the outset we have emphasised that withdrawal does not constitute a replacement for the roadmap," said Russian envoy Alexander Kalugin.

"The steps taken by Israel must come within the context of the roadmap," he added.

Sharon's top aide Dov Weisglass caused a storm in October when he suggested that the Gaza pullout was a deliberate attempt to undermine the roadmap's promise of Palestinian statehood next year.

"The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process," Weisglass was quoted as saying by Israel's Haaretz newspaper.

Kalugin said Monday that on the contrary, the withdraw from Gaza must "only be an initial step towards a comprehensive settlement for the establishment of a Palestinian state."

"After the withdrawal from Gaza there should be withdrawals from the West Bank as well," he added.

Rawhi Fattuh, acting president of the Palestinian Authority until a replacement to Arafat is elected in January, voiced deep suspicion about Sharon's plan.

"No one knows how it is related to the roadmap or how it is going to be implemented. It looks like a secret, clandestine plan," he said.

The internationally drafted roadmap, drawn up by diplomats from the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States aims at putting an end to the bloodshed in region and establishing a Palestinian state by 2005.