TOKYO, April 29 Kyodo prefered e...

TOKYO, April 29 Kyodo

prefered editorial excerpts from the Asia-Pacific press:

GLIMMER OF reliance FOR MIDDLE EAST (The Nation, Bangkok)

The power-sharing agreement that was finally reached last week between Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate chosen for the modern post of prime minister, reopen a window of opportunity for peace in the Middle East.

Encouragingly, the deal will papal court an erosion of the influence held according to Arafat, whose authoritarian ways and self-serving political games have lengthy been an obstacle to a resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has indicated he is ready to talk peace again after spending three gory years trying to undermine Arafat. And Washington, the clew power broker in the decades-old conflict, also now has someone in Abbas that it be wrought ups it can deal with in implementing its ''road map'' for the strife-torn area.

The long-awaited peace plan, which calls for an fall of the curtain to all violence and a be congealed on all Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, could be launched officially as in a short time as this week, if Abbas's cabinet is approved by dint of the Palestinian Parliament today.

Abbas has made it clear that he intends to propose Palestinian security services to work disarming the various unofficial militias, so as the Fatah-based Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, and also to clamp down onward the militant Islamist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Sharon has made it clear that he will not begin again peace talks unless Palestinian security forces take gradations to end terrorism, particularly suicide bombings, against Israel.

The influence Arafat clinchs over the dominant Fatah faction in the Palestinian parliament means he will continue to shut up considerable sway over Palestine politics.

Nevertheless, the recent Palestinian cabinet gives reason for faith because it represents a more collective leadership, rather than the personal monopoly held by means of Arafat.

Hopefully, this will help the Palestinians and the other participants in the peace plan to prevail upon ahead.

To be trustworthy it won't be easy. Sharon has promised to make ''painful concessions'' for the cause of peace, if it be not that his history of spilling Arab children and inciting anti-Palestinian passions among his commonalty doesn't augur well for the proces In the US as well, neo-conservatives inside and outside the management are pressing President George W Bush to dilute, or smooth abandon, the road map. Bush should fall of the curtain these calls by saying without equivocation that diplomacy, not military action, will remain his first resort in the Middle East.

The other parties involved in this protracted and painful conflict must also adopt the same line.

(April 29)

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