13 March 2004	Saturday	21 Muharram 1425

AL QUDS, March 12: Israel needs US assurances of support for annexing West Bank settlement blocs in return for evacuating Gaza in unilateral moves spawned by a peacemaking impasse with Palestinians, political sources said on Friday.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says his "disengagement plan" aims to defuse conflict. Palestinians say it would strip them of land they seek for a viable state under a US-backed "road map" peace plan sidelined by persistent violence.

Senior US envoys held a second day of talks with aides to Sharon to pin down what he has in mind, supportive in principle of Israeli withdrawals from occupied territory but keen not to see the road map and its vision of a negotiated peace eclipsed.

The White House and State Department envoys also met Palestinian Negotiations Minister Saeb Erekat.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said after talks with the US visitors that President George W. Bush's administration appeared to be warming to Sharon's plan after some doubt.

He said Sharon intended to take no action to break the bloody Middle East stalemate without firm US backing.

"Such support does not mean only a 'yes' from the Americans - we should also get things in return from them on a number of issues, some of which we discussed with the US envoys today," he told reporters without elaborating.

Political sources said Sharon could not override rightist resistance in his coalition to ceding any settlements, let alone 17 small isolated Gaza enclaves, unless Israel could cement its hold on much larger West Bank blocs seen as strategically vital.

ANNEXATION: The sources said Sharon wants to annex three large settlement clusters due to be taken in by a barrier Israel is erecting in the West Bank and bills as a future bulwark against suicide bombers. Palestinians call the barrier a land grab.

"For us it's a question of getting the Americans to accept that certain West Bank settlement blocs must be part of Israel in the future, as well as neighbourhoods of Jerusalem (Al Quds) that are integral Jewish parts of Jerusalem, not settlements (on occupied land) as the Palestinians call them," a senior source said.-Reuters