JERUSALEM, July 17: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is considering releasing Palestinian prisoners to advance a US-backed ‘road map’ to peace, diplomatic sources said on Thursday.

Sharon and his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas are due to meet next week before separate Washington visits at month’s end.

US President George W. Bush has voiced some support for Abbas’s demand Israel release 6,000 Palestinians arrested during the 33-month-old Intifada campaign that the road map hopes to end with a promise of statehood in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by 2005.

Prisoner amnesty is not stipulated among the plan’s reciprocal confidence-building measures, but Palestinians call it crucial to peacemaking.

Israel had earlier agreed to release hundreds “minor offenders”, ruling out the release of members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad organizations.

But Israeli diplomatic sources said on Thursday that several hundreds of fighters not accused of direct involvement in attacks could also be freed. “The prime minister is thinking of expanding the criteria as a goodwill gesture,” one of the sources said.

The Palestinians welcomed the report. “If this is true, this would be a positive step and we consider it helpful to maintaining the calm,” Information Minister Nabil Amr said.

Yet leaders of Hamas and other outfits, from whom Abbas coaxed a ceasefire on June 29, demanded more.—Reuters