Abbas visits Egypt, and Jordan before Washington
News reports in the West Bank said that the Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas will visit Cairo and Amman before his visit to Washington.
Abbas will be meeting with each of the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the Jordanian King Abdullah II in order to discuss the implementation of the Roadmap to peace and to enhance the truce announced by the Palestinian resistance groups in June with Israel.
Then Abbas will be heading for Washington where he will be meeting with the Palestinian President George W. Bush on July 25th, four days before his meeting with the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon.
Bush will discuss with the Palestinian and Israeli two leaders efforts to give the ME peace process a push forward.
The spokesman for the White House said that the President is committed to his vision to having two states living together in peace and security. The Palestinian government hopes that Abbas-Bush meeting will result in attaining a progress, like elimination of the settlement and more withdrawal from the Palestinian cities and pushing the Israeli government to release some 7000 Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli jails.
In a statement, Abbas said that the basic topics in the talks will be halting the Israeli settlement and releasing the Palestinian prisoners. In preparation for visiting the White House, Israel announced that a meeting will be held between Abbas and Sharon on Sunday.
Israeli diplomatic sources said that Sharon is considering making a good intention gesture by releasing several hundreds of Islamic activists, who were not accused of directly taking part in attacks against Israelis.
In the same context, news reports in Palestine quoted Israeli sources as saying that the Israelis will agree to releasing 40 to 60 Palestinian prisoners from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad out of some 400 Palestinians expected to be released. The Israeli government set a condition that the released persons will not be those who committed operations against Israel or worked in the military wings of resistance movements.
Meantime, the Israeli occupations forces yesterday at dawn demolished the houses of two Palestinians in Beir Rima village near Ramullah, for Ahmad Bjes and Ramez Turkey who were arrested several days ago on charges of kidnapping an Israeli driver.
A special Israeli operation was able to release him in a military operation in Beitonya town near Ramullah, where he was found safe on Monday five days after his kidnapping.
The Israeli army said the kidnappers intended to ask for a ransom and for releasing 2000 Palestinian detainees in the Israeli jails.