WASHINGTON, Dec 19: The United States on Friday backed off its initial harsh comments after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s threat to act unilaterally if Palestinians did not meet their Middle East peace plan commitments.

“We were very pleased with the overall speech of prime minister Sharon,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

“He reiterated and reaffirmed his strong support for the road map and the commitments he made in Aqaba,” a June summit attended by Sharon, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, and Mahmud Abbas, then Palestinian prime minister.

On Thursday, McClellan said the United States “would oppose any unilateral steps that block the road towards negotiations under the road map” and “that a settlement must be negotiated and we would oppose any Israeli effort to impose a settlement.”

McClellan said in his latest comments: “We are working hard with the parties to move forward to make progress on the road map,” a plan drawn up by the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia that would create a Palestinian state by 2005.

The White House has urged Sharon and new Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei “to meet soon.”

The spokesman stressed that President George W. Bush had outlined “a two states vision and the road map is the best way to get there.”

In a speech at a security conference near Tel Aviv on Thursday, Sharon said he would implement his own “disengagement plan” should the Palestinians not meet their commitments under the US-backed road map in the coming months. The road map spells out specific steps that must be taken towards creating an independent Palestinian state, existing in peace side-by-side with Israel, by 2005.

And under the plan, said Sharon, “the relocation of settlements will be made first and foremost in order to draw the most efficient security line possible, thereby creating this disengagement between Israel and the Palestinians.”

The New York Times Friday described Sharon has having “limited vision” with his proposals, viewed in the Israeli press as backing away from Israel’s long-standing aspirations of expanding Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories.

Sharon “did little to advance the cause of the Middle East peace yesterday when he warned the Palestinians that if they did not move soon to uphold their end of the peace plan, Israel would act unilaterally,” the New York Times added.—AFP