ME peace summit set for next week

Israel said US President George W Bush was likely to hold a summit with the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers in Jordan next week to promote a US-backed "road map" for Middle East peace.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom made the announcement at a Euro Mediterranean meeting in Greece a day after his country approved the plan in a historic step accepting the creation of a Palestinian state.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian President Yesser Arafat said he welcomed Israel's endorsement of the road map "but no doubt the 12 reservations they have placed on it raises question marks about this acceptance."

The United States, which pressured Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to embrace the most ambitious Middle East blueprint in two years, has said Israel's objections will be addressed while the proposal is being implemented.

Defending the plan to legislators of his right-wing Likud party, Sharon assured one lawmaker from a West Bank settlement that homes would continue to be built in the community despite the road map's call for a blanket construction freeze.

"You can build for your children and grandchildren and I hope for your great-grandchildren," Sharon said, asked about "natural growth" housing to accommodate expanding settler families.

The peace plan specifically bans "natural growth."

Initial confidence-building steps in the road map aimed at ending 32 months of violence and loosening Israel's military grip on the Palestinians seemed likely to await a Bush summit.

"In Jordan, it looks like now, President Bush will meet with Prime Minister Sharon, Prime Minister (Mahmoud) Abbas and maybe a few others," Shalom said.

"We think it is very important that the president of the US is coming to our region to move us forward. The meeting will take place maybe at the end of next week."

Bush's attendance at a trilateral summit after a trip to Europe beginning next week would underscore his growing personal commitment to securing Israeli-Palestinian peace following a US-led war in Iraq that angered many in the Arab world.

Israeli media reports said a summit in Jordan was likely to be held in its Red Sea port of Aqaba, across from the Israeli resort of Eilat. There was no immediate confirmation from Washington or Amman.

Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994, and Sharon visited the kingdom in 1998 as national infrastructure minister.

Before a trilateral summit, Sharon was expected to hold his second meeting with Abbas since the reformist prime minister took office on April 30 against the backdrop of a Palestinian uprising for statehood.

At their previous meeting, Sharon offered to pull Israeli forces out of the northern Gaza Strip and hand the area over to Palestinian security control in a test of Abbas's ability to rein in militants under the peace deal, Israeli officials said.

But no agreement was reached, and the Palestinians demanded that Israel first accept the road map.

Arafat, who reluctantly appointed a prime minister under international pressure to carry out democratic and security reforms, said on Monday that Abbas and Sharon would meet within 48 hours. Israel had no comment.