09 May 2004	Sunday	18 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

RAMALLAH, May 8: The Palestinians reacted angrily on Saturday after George W. Bush threw into doubt a 2005 target date for their promised state, but Israel gleefully seized on the US president's open questioning of the timetable set out in an international peace roadmap.

The US president's comments in an interview published on Saturday by the leading Cairo daily Al-Ahram undercut the impact on Arab opinion of his administration's announcement of its intention to renew contacts with the Palestinians in coming weeks.

"Well, 2005 may be hard, since 2005 is right around the corner," Bush told the government-owned Egyptian daily.

"I think the timetable of 2005 isn't as realistic as it was two years ago," he said.

Israel welcomed the comments but went further, ruling out any possibility of Palestinian statehood next year.

"The target date of 2005 has become an impossibility because we are still at the starting point of the roadmap as a result of the Palestinian Authority's refusal to combat terrorism," said Sharon's foreign policy advisor, Salman Shoval.

"Under these conditions, it's clear that the 2005 target date is no longer at all realistic."

Palestinian negotiations minister Saeb Erakat accused Bush of effectively torpedoing the peace plan drawn up by the European Union, Russia and the United Nations as well as the United States, and published amid great fanfare last June.

"President Bush's position removes any substance from the roadmap by calling into question the timetable for its implementation, which is an essential element of it," Erakat said.

"In this way, Bush is meeting the demands of (Israeli Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon. Sharon and Israel have always violated the rules of the game and obtained the backing of the Americans."

The White House said Rice would meet Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei in Berlin on May 17, and the State Department said Secretary of State Colin Powell would meet unspecified Palestinian officials during a visit to Jordan over the previous two days.

"If you meet Qorei, you are meeting a personal envoy of Yasser Arafat," Shoval complained alluding to Israel's US-backed policy of boycotting the veteran Palestinian leader.

"But I suppose Washington has its reasons for such a meeting," he added grudgingly.

Qorei's talks with Rice will his first since he took office as Palestinian premier last November.

Arab states had reacted with fury to the US president's announcement after talks with Sharon that he backed the plan under which Israel would pull back from the Gaza Strip but keep parts of the West Bank and also deny Palestinian refugees the right to return to land that was theirs when Israel was created in 1948.-AFP