Israel would yield settlements for peace, says Sharon

11.45am - by GWEN ACKERMAN

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in an interview published today that Israel would have to remove some settlements to get peace with Palestinians, and called the fall of Saddam Hussein a chance to end the conflict.

Expanding for the first time on previous references to "painful concessions" Israel would make for peace, Sharon also voiced objections to parts of a US-backed "road map" that sets out steps on the way to creating a Palestinian state by 2005.

As an Israeli team headed for Washington with 15 reservations about the peace plan, moves by Palestinian prime minister-designate Mahmoud Abbas to meet the US condition for releasing the blueprint to end 30 months of violence hit a snag.

Abbas, a leading moderate also known as Abu Mazen, presented a list of cabinet members, including reformist legislators, to President Yasser Arafat, Palestinian sources said.

However, sources close to Arafat said he rejected the roster in which Abbas had taken for himself the powerful interior ministry portfolio that oversees Palestinian security forces.

The United States has said release of the "road map" must await installation of an Abbas-led cabinet that Washington hopes will pursue financial transparency in the Palestinian Authority and crack down on militants behind attacks on Israel.

Sharon, long a right-wing champion of Jewish settlement on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, told the liberal Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz he was ready to take steps "that are painful for every Jew and for me personally".

"Our whole history is bound up with these places: Bethlehem, Shiloh, Beit El. I know that we will have to part with some of these places," the former general said in an interview.

"There will be a parting from places that are connected to the whole course of our history...As a Jew, this agonises me. But I have decided to make every effort to reach a (peace) settlement."

Shiloh and Beit El are Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Israel reoccupied Bethlehem, the site of Rachel's Tomb revered by Jews, last June along with six other Palestinian West Bank cities, after a spate of Palestinian suicide bombings in an uprising for statehood.

Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Sharon, said the prime minister was not singling out specific settlements in his remarks to Ha'aretz. Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said the Palestinians "wanted deeds, not words".

Sharon told Ha'aretz he was optimistic the overthrow of Saddam, a staunch supporter of Palestinian militants, would help revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

"There is an opportunity here to forge a different relationship between us and the Arab states and between us and the Palestinians," Sharon said.

The road map calls for a halt to Palestinian violence and an end to Jewish settlement building in the West Bank and Gaza, to pave the way for Palestinian statehood in the two territories.

The YESHA council that speaks for Jewish settlers said Sharon appeared willing to "expel Jews from their homes" and called such a stance "grave and bad".

The international community says Jewish settlements are illegal under international law. Israel disputes this.

Israeli reservations about the road map focus on its prescription for parallel steps by each side rather than an initial, total end to violence by Palestinians, and on its timetable for a state without guarantees of "performance" by Palestinians on their end of the deal.

Palestinians want a formula of reciprocal steps that would require Israel to freeze settlement-building and withdraw forces from Palestinian towns from the start of the process.

Another objection, Sharon said, was Israel's position that Palestinians must give up the right of refugee return to what is now the Jewish state, a demand Palestinians call a non-starter.

At least 1990 Palestinians and 729 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000.

- REUTERS