Abbas calls for peace talks with Israel

NABLUS, West Bank - Front-running candidate Mahmoud Abbas called Thursday for peace talks with Israel after this weekend's Palestinian presidential election, a sharp contrast to days of hard-line campaign pronouncements that included his labeling Israel the "Zionist enemy."

Abbas changed his tone in an unlikely place - the West Bank city of Nablus, a stronghold of militant groups and semiautonomous armed gangs that rule refugee camps and neighborhoods, and carry out bloody attacks on Israelis.

At a news conference, Abbas said that after Sunday's election he would welcome peace talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon - vilified by many Palestinians because of harsh Israeli measures during the current conflict.

"After the elections, we will start negotiations," Abbas said. "Ariel Sharon is an elected leader and we will negotiate with him. We will put the 'road map' on the table and say that we are ready to implement it completely."

The internationally backed "road map," which envisions an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, was presented in June 2003. Implementation quickly stalled because Palestinians failed to disarm violent groups and Israel did not dismantle dozens of unauthorized West Bank outposts and freeze construction in veteran settlements.

Militants appeared ready to give Abbas a chance. Ala Sanakra, a local leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent offshoot of Abbas' Fatah movement, said Abbas wants to negotiate a cease-fire with Israel. Sanakra said his militants would go along if Israel stops its military activity.

During the campaign, Abbas, 69, has worked hard to expand his constituency, trying to attract younger, more militant Palestinians with hard-line statements identifying with gunmen and backing the right of all Palestinian refugees and their descendants - about 4 million people - to return to the homes they lost in the 1948-49 war after Israel's creation.

Such stands are anathema to Israel, which demands implementation of the "road map" provision to eliminate the groups responsible for attacks against Israelis and rejects the "right of return" as an attempt to undermine the Jewish state.

Abbas hit a rhetorical peak Tuesday, when he reacted to the death of seven Palestinians from Israeli tank shells by denouncing the "Zionist enemy," a term usually used only by Islamic militants.

However, even then, Abbas also criticized militants for firing rockets and mortars at Israel. The lethal tank fire followed a Palestinian mortar barrage.

Israeli officials welcomed the new tone. "The prime minister has said that immediately after the elections he will meet with whoever gets elected to coordinate security issues, and maybe also to coordinate the disengagement plan," said a senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Also Thursday, Israel's Supreme Court turned down a petition to allow Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails to vote in the election, a court official said.

Sharon is preparing to present a new governing team next week to replace the hard-line coalition that disintegrated because of opposition to the pullout. Israeli media reported that Sharon's Likud Party signed agreements Thursday with its new partners, the moderate Labor Party and the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism faction, giving Sharon a majority in parliament and a Cabinet favorable to the pullout.

Sharon intends to remove all 21 settlements from the Gaza Strip and four from the West Bank in the summer. When he presented the plan a year ago, he called it "unilateral disengagement," refusing to coordinate with Yasser Arafat's government. Israel boycotted Arafat, charging that he was involved in Palestinian terrorism.

Since Arafat's death Nov. 11, Israel's stand toward the Palestinians has softened. Israel considers Abbas a pragmatic moderate, noting that he has spoken out against Palestinian violence, calling it a mistake.

Sharon's main problem now is domestic - vocal and potentially violent opposition to the pullout among radical settlers and their supporters, and a movement among soldiers and officers to defy orders to remove settlements.

On Thursday, 34 reserves officers signed a letter denouncing Sharon and the pullout, urging soldiers not to take part in the evacuation.

In response, the chief of staff of the Israeli military, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, said that any officer who does not cancel his signature will be thrown out of the army.

Settlers and their backers worry that Sharon's limited pullback and removal of 8,800 settlers will inevitably lead to withdrawal from all of the West Bank and evacuation of all 150 settlements, where about 244,000 Israelis live.

Religious and nationalist extremists among the settlers reject any handover of territory, citing biblical references and security arguments. Two settler leaders, including the brother of a Cabinet minister, are under police investigation for calling on soldiers to defy orders to remove settlements.