Rice to press Abbas to assure ceasefire in Jericho meeting

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will press Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to enforce a fragile ceasefire with Israel during a meeting Thursday in the West Bank, a senior official said.

The truce, aimed at halting rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip, was agreed on Sunday and has fueled hopes for other steps towards reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations after six years of conflict.

But Palestinian militants linked to Abbas' Fatah party have violated the ceasefire several times by firing homemade rockets from the northern Gaza Strip towards nearby Israeli towns.

The most recent incident on Tuesday caused no casualties and the Israeli military has so far refrained from responding.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the security situation in the Palestinian territories would top the agenda when Rice travels to the West Bank town of Jericho from nearby Jordan for Thursday's meeting with Abbas.

McCormack said a possible meeting between Rice and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert could not yet be confirmed, while Israeli officials speaking privately said an encounter between the two was unlikely.

"We'll talk about the security situation," McCormack said about the Rice-Abbas meeting.

He said Abbas had deployed some of his security forces in the northern Gaza Strip to help enforce the ceasefire with Israel, but they had so far failed to stop sporadic rocket attacks.

"We would hope that they would be effective in stopping any further rocket attacks or any terrorist attacks that might emanate from Gaza," he said.

A cell of the radical Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is linked to Fatah, has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

But Washington has viewed the brigades as a breakaway group not under Abbas' direct control.

"We believe that president Abbas is acting in good faith in taking these (security) steps, and we encourage both sides to continue to abide by the ceasefire," McCormack said.

The US has notably been pushing Israel to agree to the deployment to Gaza of a Jordanian-based Palestinian militia called the Badr Brigade, which is loyal to Abbas and which McCormack described as "competent and professional".

A senior Israeli source told AFP Tuesday that Israel had agreed in principle to the deployment of the 1,500-man brigade, which in addition to protecting the ceasefire could provide Abbas with added firepower in the event of conflict between the secular Fatah and the radical Islamic group Hamas.

Rice is due to accompany US President George W. Bush to Amman, Jordan, on Wednesday for talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Jordan's King Abdullah II.

She is then scheduled to meet at a Jordanian Dead Sea resort with foreign ministers from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council plus Jordan and Egypt -- moderate Arab states Washington hopes will help in efforts to stabilize Iraq and revive Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, McCormack said.

Hopes for a revival of the Israeli-Palestinian peace track were boosted Monday when Olmert raised the prospect of resuming long-stalled talks towards a Palestinian state following five months of violence in the Gaza Strip where more than 400 Palestinians were killed during Israeli army operations.

But for Israel and its US ally, a resumption of negotiations hinges on Abbas concluding a power-sharing deal with Hamas, which won control of the Palestinian self-rule authority in elections early this year.

Israel and the West have since boycotted the Palestinian government due to Hamas' refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist and renounce violence against the Jewish state.

The boycott has plunged the Palestinian territories into economic chaos and forced Hamas to agree in principle to let Abbas form a "national unity" government that could meet conditions for a resumption of peace talks with Israel.

But negotiations between Hamas and Fatah on the exact make-up and platform of the new government have dragged on for weeks.

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