CAIRO, 18 June 2004 — Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei called on the United States yesterday to back an Egyptian offer to underpin security in the Gaza Strip following a promised Israeli withdrawal.

Qorei, at a news conference here with Arab League chief Amr Moussa, said that “for the Egyptian mission to succeed, it is necessary to get the unconditional support from the quartet, specifically from the United States.”

The United States, along with Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, make up the diplomatic quartet that authored a Middle East peace roadmap last year envisaging the creation by 2005 of a Palestinian state.

Qorei also said Israel must not commit “any violation while Egypt is conducting its operation of restructuring the Palestinian security services.” Egypt has offered to send 150 to 200 officers and security experts on a six-month mission to organize and train a 30,000-strong Palestinian security force.

The premier was originally due to meet Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, but the talks were called off due to Mubarak’s health. Instead, Qorei held talks with top Mubarak adviser Osama Al-Baz, who said Egypt “would not go (to Gaza) to stop the Palestinians, but to help them maintain security and to train the different security forces.”

El-Baz also warned Israel not think they could dismantle Jewish settlements in Gaza only to relocate the settlers to the West Bank. Such a move would only “fuel to the flames”, he said. He was convinced, he said, that Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza could initiate a process that could be continued within the framework of the road map for peace as it had been suggested by the Middle East Quartet.

El-Baz said that representatives of the quartet comprising the United States, the United Nations, Russia and the European Union were due to meet in Cairo next week.

Qorei was also expected to meet with intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who has liaised closely with the Israelis and Palestinians over security arrangements after the withdrawal. Suleiman is due to visit the West Bank and Israel later this month.

Israel and Egypt are both keen to ensure that Gaza does not descend into chaos after the pullout of Israeli troops and the 7,500 Jewish settlers as envisaged by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon before the end of next year. The Palestinian leadership has welcomed Egypt’s offer of help, partly out of fear that a security vacuum would play into the hands of Hamas.

In a speech late Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that he was ready to endure the pain of evacuating Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip in keeping with his controversial withdrawal plan. He spoke of following in the footsteps of the late Israeli Premier Menachem Begin who oversaw the 1982 evacuation of settlements from the Sinai after reaching a peace deal with then Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

“He (Begin) brought about an historic breakthrough with the signing of the peace accord with Egypt,” said Sharon who oversaw the Sinai evacuation while defense minister. “The painful price, the evacuation of the settlements in Sinai, broke his heart. However, he did not hesitate to carry it out.”

Having lost his parliamentary majority earlier this month, Sharon is almost certain to invite the opposition Labor party into a new coalition government in order to push the withdrawal plan onto the statute books.

Labor leader Shimon Peres said yesterday that while that talks on a new Cabinet had not commenced, his party would do everything in its power to ensure that the withdrawal proceeds. “We are doing everything we can in favor of the evacuation of the settlements and the relaunch of negotiations over the future of the territories” with the Palestinians, Peres told army radio.

Senior Labor MP Yitzhak Herzog said that a meeting of party deputies had agreed to continue providing a safety net for Sharon’s government, although he added that “this situation cannot last for long”.

The agreement would be examined on a weekly basis, he said. Otherwise, in the West Bank village of Iskaka, some 400 Palestinian and foreign activists protested for the second consecutive day against the start of work on Israel’s separation barrier around the major settlement of Ariel.

Some protesters needed treatment after inhaling teargas fired by Israeli troops who were protecting three bulldozers that were leveling land around the village. Anger over construction of the barrier around Ariel is particularly acute as it juts some 20 kilometers (12 miles) into the West Bank.