Immediate talks with Sharon ruled out

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie yesterday ruled out talks with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as long as Israel continued to construct a separation barrier in the West Bank. Qurie's comments appeared to forestall an immediate meeting with Sharon, which is seen as crucial to giving new momentum to a US-backed road map to peace that has stalled over an upsurge of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

"If the Israeli government says it will continue building the wall regardless of what happens, then there is no need for any meeting or talks to take place (with Sharon)," Qurie told reporters after a weekly cabinet meeting in Ramallah. Qurie spoke shortly before leaving for Jordan for his first meeting with US Middle East envoy William Burns since the Palestinian premier took office earlier this month.

Israel has said it is determined to construct the barrier to prevent attacks by militants who have infiltrated into the Jewish state from West Bank cities and carried out more than 100 suicide bombings in a three-year-old Palestinian uprising for independence.

Palestinians view the barrier of razor-wire fences and concrete walls as an attempt to unilaterally annex occupied land. The barrier has raised controversy because it encircles Jewish settlements deep in occupied West Bank territory.

The barrier drew fresh condemnation from the United Nations on Friday when Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a report saying it could make "the creation of an independent, viable and contiguous Palestinian state more difficult".

Israel responded to Annan's report by issuing a statement saying it would continue building the barrier "as long as there is no intense and effective effort by the Palestinian Authority to confront Palestinian terror groups".

Despite issuing conditions for a meeting with Sharon, Qurie said his top aide Hassan Abu Libdeh and cabinet minister Saeb Erekat would meet the director of Sharon's office, Dov Weisglass, today to discuss a Sharon-Qurie summit. No date has been set for such a meeting, Qurie said, adding the talks would not take place unless three is "prior preparation" and if "the outstanding issues are not resolved". "We don't want meetings for the sake of meetings," he said.

The road map calls for reciprocal steps, such as a halt to Jewish settlement construction and the dismantling of Palestinian militant groups, as part of a course it charts towards the establishment of a Palestinian state in 2005. Qurie also said he would tell Burns in their meeting in Amman yesterday that Washington must get involved in reviving stalled peace negotiations "energetically" and "directly". Burns is expected to meet Sharon in Jerusalem today in his first visit to Israel since August, Israel Radio reported.

Qurie will also meet King Abdullah in Amman. The Jordanian monarch plans to lobby the United States to push forward the stalled road map during a meeting with President George W. Bush in Washington next week, palace officials said. As expected, the United States earlier this week decided to trim back on $9 billion in loan guarantees to Israel as a signal of renewed interest in Middle East peacemaking from a US administration preoccupied for much of the year with Iraq.