JERUSALEM (AFX) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has begun to modify his plan to unilaterally fix Israel's borders after a lukewarm international reception and is looking for an agreement with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, the Haaretz daily reported today.
The Haaretz daily said Olmert would propose to Abbas they reach an agreement to establish a Palestinian state with provisional borders, incorporating parts of the West Bank to the east of Israel's separation barrier and Gaza Strip.
Under the terms of an internationally backed bilateral peace plan known as the roadmap, the two sides could only proceed toward talks on provisional borders after the cessation of Palestinian attacks.
But the blueprint has failed to make progress since its launch three years ago amid continuing violence.
Olmert's plan would essentially see both sides bypass phase I of the roadmap and proceed straight to phase II, thus honouring calls by the likes of Egypt, Jordan and the United States to strike a peace accord rather than move unilaterally, Haaretz said.
Although US President George W. Bush called Olmert's so-called realignment plan 'bold', he also urged the Israeli leader to first exhaust every effort to reach an agreement with the moderate Abbas.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah II also insisted on the need for a negotiated settlement, while British Prime Minister Tony Blair told Olmert at talks in London yesterday of his continuing belief that the roadmap was the best way forward.
Olmert has said he would prefer a negotiated settlement.
But he says Abbas can only be a partner in the peace process if he moves to disarm armed factions such as Hamas -- the radical Islamist movement which now governs the Palestinian Authority and refuses to recognise Israel's right to exist.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Haaretz that 'currently, Abbas is not a partner for a final-status agreement, but he could be a partner for other arrangements, on the basis of the roadmap's phased process'.
The premier regards international support for realignment as essential to its chances of success.
But the relative lack of enthusiasm from foreign governments has weakened its backing from the Israeli public, with a new poll showing that less than half of voters now support the convergence project.
Under the terms of the realignment plan, Olmert is planning to uproot around 70,000 Israelis living in the occupied West Bank, but in turn he plans to cement control over the big housing blocs where the majority of the quarter of a million Jewish settlers live.
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