Jordanian prime minister confers with Powell

The Jordanian prime minister Ali Abu al-Ragheb has denounced statements made by the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon on the continued Israeli settlement policy in the Palestinian territories, which violate international legitimacy resolutions and the land for peace formula.

News reports quoted Abu al-Ragheb as saying following his meeting with the US secretary of state Colin Powell on Monday in Washington that Sharon's statements about occupied Jerusalem and the Israeli settlement do not help in building confidence.

Powell, for his part, stressed that the US is greatly involved in the Middle East diplomacy, but he confined to describing the recent reports about the escalation of confrontations in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel's escalation of its aggressiveness against the Palestinian citizens as " very annoying" and urged the two sides to resort to self- control.

In a statement to the CNN, He added that the US continue to urge the two sides to resort to self- control and not to use what he had called violence as a means to solve hindering problems in the region. Powell did not directly comment of the Israeli forces crime in killing five Palestinian policemen in a cold blood under the pretext that he has no details.