AL QUDS, April 26: An international “roadmap” for Middle East peace will be unveiled as early as next week once Palestinian legislators endorse new reform-minded prime minister Mahmoud Abbas, a US official said on Saturday.

The Palestinian Legislative Council is widely expected to approve Abbas’s appointment on Tuesday at a special session in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

“The roadmap will be issued as soon as (Abbas) is confirmed. It could be a just matter of days,” said the official, who is based in the Middle East but declined to be named.

The United States and its so-called “Quartet” partners, the United Nations, European Union and Russia, produced the plan in an effort to stem a bloody uprising by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip territories captured by Israel in 1967.

Under the plan, Palestinians would get statehood by 2005 in exchange for reining in militants. Israel would get security.

A senior Palestinian minister, Nabil Shaath, said he expected the roadmap to be released on Wednesday.

SIX PALESTINIANS WOUNDED IN NEW VIOLENCE: In violence on Saturday, Israeli troops patrolling Nablus — one of several West Bank cities Israel reoccupied after a wave of suicide bombings last year — wounded six Palestinians during a clash with gunmen and stone-throwers, medical officials said.—Reuters