Abbas arrives in US expecting support

WASHINGTON - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has arrived in Washington for his first White House visit, to assure US President George W Bush he is a serious partner for peace with Israel, officials said.

Abbas' visit is the first by a Palestinian president since 2000, when Middle East peace negotiations collapsed into violence for which US officials often blamed Abbas' late predecessor, Yasser Arafat.

Palestinian officials said Abbas expects strong support from Bush for his democratisation and reform efforts but he has scaled back expectations of concrete US promises to push Israel to enter "final-status" negotiations on a Palestinian state once Israel withdraws from the occupied Gaza Strip in three months.

Washington, eager to end the deadlock in the peace process, has welcomed Abbas' ability to extract a ceasefire from Palestinian militant groups and his efforts to achieve statehood through democratic and peaceful means.

"President Abbas will prove to Mr Bush he is a serious partner for peace. He will brief Mr Bush on his achievements on democratisation and security reforms," a senior Palestinian official said.

"But he will also make clear that democracy cannot flourish under occupation and will ask for help to end that occupation," another official told Reuters.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told pro-Israel lobbyists in Washington that Bush would emphasise the importance of Abbas enhancing democracy in the Palestinian areas.

"We are democratising, and now we want our freedom," Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad said.

Officials said Abbas will tell Bush in talks at the White House on Thursday he has serious concerns about Israel's mid-August disengagement plan. The plan, including the evacuation of all 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and four out of 120 in the West Bank, would threaten Bush's vision for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.

Palestinians welcome the prospect of taking over Gaza but say that if Israel keeps larger tracts of the West Bank as the trade-off, it would be impossible to set up a viable, territorially contiguous state.

"President Abbas will ask Bush for assurances that the final status of the West Bank and Gaza will not be pre-empted by the Gaza disengagement plan," a senior Palestinian official said.

On Tuesday in Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in a speech to the most powerful US pro-Israel group, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, proposed coordinating with the Palestinian Authority Israel's planned pullout from the Gaza Strip.

He said such cooperation would enable Israel and the Palestinians "to embark on a new era of trust and build our relations with the Palestinian Authority."

Officials said Abbas will show Bush on Thursday maps that detail the expansion of settlement activity in the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem -- a violation of the US-backed road map for peace -- and that show how a barrier snaking through the West Bank -- jeopardises Bush's two-state vision.

"Abbas will also tell Bush that the Palestinians have made historic compromises by showing him a map of historic Palestine and a map of the West Bank and Gaza which the Palestinians now seek for a state and that comprise only 22 per cent of all of Palestine," one official said.

A third map Abbas will show Bush will highlight how limited the Gaza disengagement plan would be "and show that in return for evacuating 21 small settlements in Gaza, Israel was building many more in the West Bank and plans to eat up big chunks of the West Bank by annexing large settlement blocs there."

"The Americans understand our concern but it remains unclear whether they have a clear political vision for what comes after the Gaza evacuation," a senior Palestinian official said.

- REUTERS