Bush to Visit Middle East in Push for Peace

George Bush's belated engagement with the Middle East peace process took a step further yesterday with the announcement that he will visit the region next month.

The visit, reported to be set for early January, will be the first in the seven years of his presidency. He visited Israel in 1998 when he was Texas governor. An itinerary was not released but it is though that Bush will visit the Gulf states as well as Israel and Palestine.

The announcement came a week after Bush hosted talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders at Annapolis, Maryland. At the urging of the president, Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, agreed to restart negotiations aimed at bringing an end to the conflict. Bush promised at the 44-nation gathering that the US would remain engaged in the process.

The announcement carried echoes of similar efforts by previous presidents. While during most of his presidency Bush has remained distant from the difficult problem, he now argues that the time is right for both sides to reach an accord. He has promised to invest his personal authority in the search for a solution.

"I remain personally committed to implementing my vision of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security," he said in the run-up to Annapolis.

He argued that both sides are ready for peace, and personal relations between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders are thought to be at their most cordial for years.

But significant differences including the status of Jerusalem, the rights of Palestinian refugees and the borders of a Palestinian state have kept the two sides apart and have led to the collapse of previous efforts to reach a peace accord,

Israel's housing ministry said yesterday it plans to build 307 homes in a settlement in East Jerusalem, drawing swift condemnation from Palestinian officials.

Tenders were published for housing units in Har Homa, a settlement to the south-east of the city on land captured by Israel in the 1967 war and later annexed. East Jerusalem is now home to about 200,000 Jewish settlers. Most of the international community does not recognize Israel's annexation of the east of the city.

Palestinian officials said yesterday the tenders were in breach of the US road map for peace, which leaders from both sides agreed at Annapolis would be the basis of talks.

But Israel says the road map does not apply to Jerusalem. Mark Regev, a spokesman for Olmert, said: "Israel will abide by all its obligations under the road map. Its obligations apply to the West Bank, Jerusalem is different. Jerusalem is our capital. It is Israeli sovereign territory."

But Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, wrote to the quartet of Middle East negotiators - the US, EU, UN and Russia - saying the announcement was a violation of Israel's road map commitments, and calling Israeli settlements "the single greatest threat" to peace negotiations.

The road map calls on Israel to dismantle its furthest settlements and to freeze all settlement activity. It also calls on the Palestinians to curb violence and dismantle armed groups.