JERUSALEM, Oct 31: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, giving no ground on the heels of Israel’s Gaza withdrawal, said in a policy speech on Monday the Palestinian Authority (PA) should ‘wage a real war on terror’ before peace talks can resume.

He reaffirmed his bedrock position after postponing a showdown with far-right members of his own Likud party still fuming over the pullout and threatening to derail new cabinet appointments, a major test of his political strength.

“The demand for the Palestinians to wage a real war on terror cannot be circumvented,” Mr Sharon said in a ‘state of the nation’ address opening the Knesset’s winter session after a week in which bloodshed surged.

“The international community is united in its demand the Palestinian Authority carry out all its commitments, primarily the disarming of terrorist organizations and preventing attacks against Israel,” he said.

Such action, Mr Sharon said, was ‘the only way to get back on the route of negotiations’ under the US-backed roadmap that calls for a crackdown on militants as a condition for the creation of a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.

The Palestinians put the onus on Israel, citing its failure to freeze expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, another requirement of the roadmap.

“At the end of the day, it is either settlements or peace, and it seems to me that this government is pursuing settlements and dictation, and not peace and negotiations,” Palestinian negotiations minister Saeb Erekat said.

THREE SHOT DEAD: In violence on Sunday, Israeli troops killed three Islamic Jihad militants in the West Bank, the Israeli army said, hours after the organization agreed to halt rocket attacks from Gaza.