May 2, 2002	Thursday	Safar 18, 1423

WASHINGTON, May 1: The Bush administration on Wednesday called a proposed Middle East peace summit “premature,” saying President George W. Bush, in close coordination with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, planned to step up pressure on Israel and the Palestinians to end the Middle East crisis.

“There still is a lot of work that has to be done on the ground in the Middle East on many levels before this rises up to the summit level,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said of the proposal, which was put forward by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon but drew heavy fire from Saudi Arabia.

Abdullah met Bush last week at his Texas ranch and officials said they agreed to closely coordinate efforts to ease tensions in the Middle East by getting Sharon to halt Israeli incursions and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to stop suicide bombings.

The coordination paid off when a deal was reached to lift the Israeli siege of Arafat’s compound in Ramallah. The deal was a breakthrough for Bush, who has come under fire at home and abroad for doing too little to stop the fighting.

Fleischer said the United States hoped to move the “process of bringing peace to the region” forward when Bush meets in Washington next week with Sharon, who angered the administration by resisting the president’s calls for a prompt and complete withdrawal from Palestinian areas.

“The president is always direct and says what he thinks with all leaders,” Fleischer said. Bush will also meet next week with Jordan’s King Abdullah.

Fleischer denied a New York Times report that Bush and the Saudi crown prince agreed in Texas to a “division of labor,” whereby US officials would press Sharon to break the psychology of violence, while Arab leaders do the same at a meeting with Arafat, perhaps in Cairo.

“The president understands that to bring peace to the region, it requires the good efforts of many parties in the region, and Saudi Arabia is playing a very positive and constructive role,” Fleischer said.

But he made clear that Bush had no plans to abdicate his role in keeping pressure on Arafat and other Arab leaders. “I think it’s over-simplistic to say that one group of nations is going to target one group. It’s always going to be interactive,” he said.

Bush briefed congressional leaders at the White House about his meeting with Abdullah and future plans to ease the crisis.

Over White House objections, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, said he would schedule a vote as early as this week on a resolution by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, expressing solidarity with Israel.

The White House had urged lawmakers to hold off, with the situation so fragile. “It’s important in the world of foreign policy not to have 535 secretaries of state,” Fleischer said.

But he stopped short of urging Daschle to delay the vote, saying the administration would work “closely with the Congress on anything that they may put on the fl