Sharon vows to expand settlement

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pledged yesterday to expand a large Jewish settlement near Jerusalem, drawing White House opposition and Palestinian concern about his territorial intentions after a Gaza pullout.

"I don't see construction in the E-1 area as a serious problem," Mr Sharon, referring to West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim, was quoted as telling lawmakers at a closed-door session.

"We must link Jerusalem to Maale Adumim," he said about a corridor where Palestinians fear Israeli construction would cut them off from the eastern part of the holy city which they hope to make the capital of a future state.

Mr Sharon spoke to a parliamentary committee a week before he meets George W. Bush at the US president's Texas ranch for their first face-to-face talks in a year.

White House spokesman Scott McClennan said "settlement activity will be a subject that comes up" when the two leaders convene next Monday against the backdrop of Israel's US-endorsed plan to pull out of the Gaza Strip in July.

Many Palestinians fear the Gaza evacuation is a ploy to trade the impoverished coastal strip where 8,500 settlers live for large swathes of the West Bank, where most of Israel's 240,000 settlers reside.

Asked about Mr Sharon's plans in the West Bank, Mr McClellan said: "We oppose the expansion of any settlement activity. That has been our view and that remains our view."

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, responding to news last month of Israel's intention to build 3,500 homes between Maale Adumim and Arab East Jerusalem, said settlement expansion was at odds with US policy and should come to a "full stop".

Israel has given no timeframe for the start of the project. "A strip (between) Jerusalem and Maale Adumim will certainly be built. (At) what time, under what circumstances, (at) which phase during negotiations... I honestly don't know," Israeli Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in a conference call with reporters in the United States.

But Mr Sharon believes an extension of Israel's biggest settlement, home to 30,000 people, is in line with Mr Bush's assurance to him last year that the Jewish state could expect to keep some large settlement blocs under a final peace accord.

Mr Bush's commitment, which broke with decades of US policy, angered Palestinians.

"(Mr Sharon) wants to withdraw from Gaza to impose his control on the West Bank, especially Jerusalem," Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Nabil Shaath said, referring to Mr Sharon's remarks.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem its undivided capital, a claim that is not recognised internationally. Building up Maale Adumim, on land Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, is viewed by Mr Sharon as a way of safeguarding that claim.

Meanwhile, leading Palestinian militant groups vowed to defy President Mahmoud Abbas's bid to disarm hundreds of gunmen wanted by Israel. Leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad rejected Mr Abbas's efforts outright while al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of his own Fatah movement, appeared divided on how to respond.

Mr Abbas, elected in January to succeed the late Yasser Arafat, decided to act after a group of militants fired on his West Bank compound and went on a shooting rampage in Ramallah last week.