Settler leaders said earlier that a senior official from
Sharon's office offered them a deal under which they would
agree not to oppose the evacuation in return for a law banning
removal of additional settlements until a peace deal accord was
achieved.
"I want to emphasize that all the reports of purported
negotiations with the YESHA (settlement) council on the issue
of the disengagement plan are incorrect," Sharon told
reporters.
"I have no intention to legislate such a law or any other
that would tie the government's hands," he said, reinforcing a
denial issued hours earlier by a spokesman.
The controversy flared amid a fresh, low-key round of
U.S-led peace diplomacy and reports that Sharon will soon head
to Washington to present his disengagement plan to President
Bush (news - web sites).
Sharon has said that if a stalled U.S.-backed "road map"
collapses, Israel will uproot some of its most isolated
settlements and draw a "security line" around others, absorbing
chunks of territory Palestinians want for a state.
But he has avoided giving details on which settlements
might go, as Israel presses ahead with construction of a West
Bank barrier which it says has already stopped suicide bombers
from reaching its cities. Palestinians call the project a land
grab.
Preparations, meanwhile, moved into high gear for Israel's
planned release Thursday of 436 prisoners, most of them
Palestinians, in a German-mediated swap with the Lebanese
guerrilla group Hizbollah.
They will be released in return for an Israeli businessman
held by Hizbollah and three Israeli troops presumed dead after
they were abducted while on border patrol in 2000.
SETTLERS BRIDLE AT SETTLEMENT REMOVAL
Suggestions that Israel would dismantle any settlements
built on occupied land have triggered settlers' accusations of
betrayal by Sharon.
"They have tried to persuade us to agree to the removal of
settlements," said Yesha spokesman Yehoshua Mor Yosef after a
meeting with Sharon's representatives. "Sharon wants to go to
Washington with a closed plan. We rejected it outright."
Settler leaders said that those listed for removal were in
both the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites), occupied since the 1967
Middle East war. Most of the international community regards
Israel's 150 settlements as illegal. Israel disputes this.
Palestinians welcome the removal of settlements but are
opposed to Sharon's threatened unilateral measures, saying such
moves would leave them with a shrunken, chopped-up state.
After months of absence, U.S. envoy John Wolf returned to
begin holding talks with both sides aimed at reviving the road
map. But expectations for progress remained low.
"Our sense is that both sides need to continue to do more,"
Wolf told reporters during a meeting with Israeli Foreign
Minister Silvan Shalom.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher and intelligence
chief Omar Suleiman visited Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (news - web sites)
in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
A Palestinian official said the Egyptians came to ask
Arafat to help restart talks with militants to forge a
cease-fire in their attacks on Israelis, a move crucial to the
road map.
