Arafat backs returning US envoy

Israeli tanks continue to surround Palestinian cities

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has welcomed the proposed return of US envoy Anthony Zinni to the Middle East as an opportunity to resume efforts to find peace with Israel.

If calm continues for the next two or three days it would be a very good time to start the implementation of the Tenet plan

Shimon Peres
Israeli Foreign Minister

Mr Zinni left the region on 16 December after a three-week stay during which a wave of Palestinian suicide bomb attacks were launched inside Israel, leading to a series of intense Israeli reprisal strikes.

The decision to revive his mediating role as of Thursday follows a marked drop in violence between the two sides over the past two weeks.

"We hope that Zinni's visit will go in the right direction so that we can put things back on track, on the basis of what we agreed," Mr Arafat told the AFP news agency, referring to a series of previous peace talks aimed at reaching a settlement.

Israel's dovish foreign minister Shimon Peres meanwhile questioned Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's insistence on seven straight days of calm before a formal ceasefire, as outlined last year by CIA chief George Tenet, could be implemented.

"If calm continues for the next two or three days it would be a very good time to start the implementation of the Tenet plan," he told state television.

Meanwhile Israeli tanks in the southern Gaza Strip fired several shells into the Khan Younis camp, Palestinian security officials said.

Six Palestinians were killed earlier in the week by Israeli forces, also in the Gaza Strip.

Peace plans

The US originally dispatched Mr Zinni to the region in November to try to implement the Tenet ceasefire project, which would be followed up by a plan for peace negotiations recommended last May by former US senator George Mitchell.

Mr Zinni will tell Arafat the arrests of militants is 'encouraging'

The Mitchell plan calls on Israel to freeze all new construction of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories and to stop the army firing on unarmed Palestinian demonstrators.

Of the Palestinian Authority, the plan requests a clampdown on Palestinian extremists.

In recent weeks, scores of Palestinian militants have been arrested amid intense international pressure to crack down on terrorism in the wake of December's suicide attacks against Israeli targets.

The arrests include 10 on a list of 33 top suspects submitted by Israel through Mr Zinni on his last trip.

US embassy spokesman Paul Patin said Mr Zinni would tell the Palestinians their actions against militants was "encouraging" but must continue, while he would press Israel for an "easing up on travel [restrictions] for Palestinians".

Veto

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, however, has said Mr Arafat is not doing enough and has repeatedly ruled out returning to peace talks until there is a complete cessation of violence.

Israel says it is maintaining a blockade of Palestinian towns and villages across the West Bank, and has continued to carry out its own arrests on Palestinian territories.

On Tuesday, Mr Sharon vetoed a plan by Israel's president, Moshe Katsav, to make an address to the Palestinian parliament as an initial conciliatory gesture

His response provoked a rare rebuke from the president's office, which issued a statement regretting "the tone of the reaction from the Prime Minister's office, a tone which is both unseemly and inappropriate".