Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pledged on Monday to push ahead with expansion of a large Jewish settlement near Jerusalem, despite US concerns and Palestinian protests it would cut them off from the city. "I don't see construction in the E-1 area as a serious problem," Sharon, referring to the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim, was quoted as telling lawmakers at a closed-door session. "We must link Jerusalem to Maale Adumim."
Sharon spoke to a parliamentary committee a week before he meets George W. Bush at the US president's Texas ranch.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, responding to news last month of Israeli plans 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".
But Sharon believes an extension of Israel's biggest settlement, home to 30,000 people, is in line with Bush's assurance to him last year that the Jewish state could expect to keep some large settlement blocs under a final peace accord.
Bush's commitment, which broke with decades of US policy, angered Palestinians.
Palestinians said the latest project on land Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war would cut them off from East Jerusalem, which they want as the capital of their future state.
Israel considers all of Jerusalem its undivided capital, a claim that is not recognised internationally. Building up Maale Adumim is viewed by Israel as a way of safeguarding that claim.
Many Palestinians fear Sharon's planned pullout from Gaza this summer 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.
"(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 Sharon's remarks.
MILITANTS DEFIANT: 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 Abbas's efforts outright while al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of his own Fatah movement, appeared divided on how to respond.
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.
He is not only under pressure from Israel and the United States to fulfil pledges from a February cease-fire summit but also fears Palestinians voters, fed up with lawlessness, will punish his ruling Fatah group in a July parliamentary election.
Abbas issued a decree on Sunday giving committees of officials in the West Bank and Gaza two weeks "to resolve the issue of the fugitives," referring to about 530 militants on Israel's wanted list for alleged involvement in attacks.
Under the decree, the wanted men would voluntarily disarm and be recruited into the Palestinian Authority, a security source said. Israel then would no longer pursue them under a deal Abbas reached with Sharon at a February 8 summit.
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