US President George W. Bush said Monday he would invite Palestinian president-elect Mahmud Abbas to Washington for talks and linked the success of the Palestinian vote to his hopes for Iraq later this month.
"I offer my congratulations to Abu Mazen. I look forward to talking to him at the appropriate time. I look forward to welcoming him here to Washington if he chooses to come here," Bush told reporters at the White House.
Abbas, who is also known as Abu Mazen, scored a landslide victory in Sunday's election to find a successor to the late Yasser Arafat. Bush had refused all contact with Arafat, accusing him of doing too little to prevent attacks on Israel by radical groups.
"This is a man who has been elected by what appears to be a good-sized vote," said Bush. "I'm heartened by the elections."
Later in the day, Bush telephoned Abbas to congratulate him on his victory and reaffirm his commitment to helping Palestinians create a "free and democratic" state as well as "tackle key issues like security, terrorism, economic growth and building democratic institutions," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Abbas visited the White House as the Palestinian prime minister last year. But he stood down a few months later following several disagreements with Arafat.
The US leader backed a conference being organized by Britain on March 1-2 on Palestinian security and political and economic reforms. The conference was "aimed at helping the Palestinians develop the institutions necessary to support Abu Mazen's vision of a peaceful, active, vibrant state to become reality," he said.
Bush also took the opportunity to link the success of Sunday's vote to the Iraqi election on Jan. 30 and said the two events would make 2005 "an extraordinary year."
"In the first month of a new year, there will be an election in the Palestinian territory and there will be an election in Iraq. Who could have possibly envisioned an election in Iraq at this point in history? And yet we're going to have an election.
"And I'm sure there are a lot of people who are incredibly excited about the thought of having an election in Iraq inside the Iraqi territory -- except for a handful who want to stop democracy -- because they understand what election means.
"And so as a democrat, as a person who believes in democracy -- a Republican democrat, I might add -- as someone who believes that everybody has a right to live in a free society and everybody wants to live in a free society, the month of January 2005 is an extraordinary month."
But for the Bush administration, the victory of Abbas and the election of a moderate Palestinian leadership is the first step in its efforts to relaunch the Middle East peace process. Bush promised after his election victory in November to make this a foreign policy priority.
The US leader said he believed Israel had contributed to the success of the Palestinian election. Both sides still have heavy "responsibilities" to get the process back on track.
It will be "very important" for Israel to carry out its pledge to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank, Bush said.
"It is essential that Israel keep a vision of two states living side by side in peace; and that, as the Palestinians begin to develop the institutions of a state, that the Israel government support the development of those institutions."
Bush said Israel had to help the Palestinians with their economy, healthcare system and building a new society. "Israel can play and must play an important part of the development of a Palestinian state."
He added: "At the same time, it's essential that the Palestinian leadership consolidate security forces so that they can fight off those few who still have the desire to destroy Israel as a part of their philosophy."
TIT-FOR-TAT: The arrest of Filipinos that Manila said were in China as part of a scholarship program follows the Philippines’ detention of at least a dozen Chinese The Philippines yesterday expressed alarm over the arrest of three Filipinos in China on suspicion of espionage, saying they were ordinary citizens and the arrests could be retaliation for Manila’s crackdown against alleged Chinese spies. Chinese authorities arrested the Filipinos and accused them of working for the Philippine National Security Council to gather classified information on its military, the state-run China Daily reported earlier this week, citing state security officials. It said the three had confessed to the crime. The National Security Council disputed Beijing’s accusations, saying the three were former recipients of a government scholarship program created under an agreement between the
Sitting around a wrestling ring, churchgoers roared as local hero Billy O’Keeffe body-slammed a fighter named Disciple. Beneath stained-glass windows, they whooped and cheered as burly, tattooed wresters tumbled into the aisle during a six-man tag-team battle. This is Wrestling Church, which brings blood, sweat and tears — mostly sweat — to St Peter’s Anglican church in the northern England town of Shipley. It is the creation of Gareth Thompson, a charismatic 37-year-old who said he was saved by pro wrestling and Jesus — and wants others to have the same experience. The outsized characters and scripted morality battles of pro wrestling fit
ACCESS DISPUTE: The blast struck a house, and set cars and tractors alight, with the fires wrecking several other structures and cutting electricity An explosion killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old, during a standoff between rival groups of gold miners early on Thursday in northwestern Bolivia, police said, a rare instance of a territorial dispute between the nation’s mining cooperatives turning fatal. The blast thundered through the Yani mining camp as two rival mining groups disputed access to the gold mine near the mountain town of Sorata, about 150km northwest of the country’s administrative capital of La Paz, said Colonel Gunther Agudo, a local police officer. Several gold deposits straddle the remote area. Agudo had initially reported six people killed,
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
RSS