US Considers Middle East Peace Plan

The Bush administration is considering whether to draw up a broad framework and timetable for a comprehensive Middle East settlement which would lay the ground for a regional peace conference this summer, it emerged yesterday.

Such a blueprint would represent a significant policy shift for a president who came to office vowing not to impose a settlement. The tentative nature of the proposals suggests there is still no consensus within the administration.

There is also great uncertainty over the impact of terrorist incidents and Israeli reprisals on such plans. Israeli troops moved into Jenin after Monday's suicide bombing in Petah Tikva which killed a woman and her infant granddaughter and wounded 44.

A Palestinian man was killed in the course of the raid, and the Israeli army said it had detained six militants in Jenin, including a Hamas leader, Rami Awad, and eight others in other parts of the West Bank. Military officials said the troops had pulled out of Jenin by midday yesterday.

Officials travelling with the Bush entourage in Europe briefed journalists on the plan, in what diplomats described as a trial balloon to test the reactions of the Israelis and Arabs as well as those of hawks within the US administration opposed to both a conference or a US-brokered plan before the threat of Palestinian militants had been eradicated.

The US is said to be consulting "friends and allies" about the idea.

A diplomat in Washington confirmed that there had been consultations, and said the administration briefings were intended to set the scene for a series of important meetings in the next few weeks.

The assistant secretary of state for the near east, William Burns, began a visit to Cairo, Amman and Jerusalem yesterday, to gauge attitudes. The CIA director, George Tenet, is due to go to Jerusalem on Friday in order to continue work on the reconstruction of the Palestinian security services and to help reestablish its security cooperation with Israel.

"Both visits are thought to be a prelude to the United States announcing a conference in summer that would focus on Palestinian reform, economic help, while at the same time holding out a political vision for the Palestinians," the diplomat said.

The Israeli leader, Ariel Sharon, has said he will not enter into major political negotiations before the Palestinian Authority has been thoroughly reformed, preferably without Yasser Arafat.

Arab states have agreed to put pressure on Mr Arafat to make his regime more accountable to his people but they are reluctant to attend a conference which did not include negotiations on a comprehensive settlement based on the exchange of land for peace.

President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt is expected to put this view forward when he visits Washington in early June.