Abbas tells lawmakers to back him or sack him

Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, struggling to win more power from Yasser Arafat and push a US-backed plan for peace with Israel, called on Palestinian lawmakers yesterday to back him or sack him.

Pledging his commitment to salvage the battered Middle East "road map", Abbas sought new security powers he sees as vital to diplomacy but which the Palestinian president has been reluctant to give him, officials said.

Abbas, 68, appointed by Arafat in April under international pressure but lacking his rival's grass-roots popularity, stopped short of asking for a vote of confidence.

But as Arafat supporters staged anti-Abbas protests in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, parliamentary speaker Ahmed Korei said 15 out of the 85 lawmakers had filed a petition asking for such a vote. There was no immediate decision on the request.

Abbas's removal by parliament, which is dominated by Arafat loyalists, could doom the US-brokered road map already under threat from fresh bloodshed and the cancellation of a ceasefire by Islamic militants.

Throwing down a gauntlet to lawmakers, Abbas said power-sharing problems needed to be urgently addressed and he was ready to leave office if he did not get his way.

"Either provide the possibility of strong support for carrying out (the mandate) or you can take it back," Abbas said in a speech to the Palestinian Legislative Council while dozens of demonstrators stood outside chanting slogans against him.

In an apparent bid to defuse the crisis, lawmakers voted to hold a closed-door session on Saturday to hear Abbas's account of his dispute with Arafat.

Speaking in even tones, Abbas blamed Israel for a lack of progress in peace moves and said the United States had done too little to restrain the Israeli army. "We... reiterate that we will continue our efforts to restore calm," he said.

The power struggle between Abbas and Arafat has centred on Abbas's demand, backed by the United States, for control over the security forces who are crucial for reining in militants as required by the road map.

Arafat has retained authority over most security services, drawing US and Israeli accusations that he is trying to undermine his reform-minded prime minister.

But a leaflet distributed by Fatah's Ramallah branch accused Abbas's administration of acting like a US and Israeli puppet and called for its removal.

"We support Arafat's decisions," chanted 1,000 angry supporters of the president in Gaza's Khan Younis refugee camp. "He is the one responsible for the Palestinian people."

Underlining Abbas's woes, a militant group affiliated with the Fatah faction, in which both he and Arafat hold leadership roles, emerged as one of the groups claiming joint responsibility for a West Bank ambush just before parliament met.

An Israeli army spokesman said that Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a patrol carrying out arrests in the West Bank town of Jenin, killing a soldier.

Abbas said he would seek a return to implementation of the road map, which outlines reciprocal steps to end almost three years of violence since the Palestinians began an uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"I tell you frankly that our serious attempts to arrange a mechanism to revive the political path with the Israelis did not get a sufficient response," Abbas said. "I don't think anybody in the world disagrees with me that the Israeli side is responsible for this."

Israel blames the violence on the Palestinians and says the truce collapsed because of a suicide bombing which killed 21 people on an Israeli bus in Jerusalem on August 19.

Abbas said a "quartet" of peacemakers - the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union - should work harder to salvage the road map, which outlines steps to create a Palestinian state in 2005.

He also called for an end to Washington's isolation of Arafat, accused by the United States and Israel of encouraging violence. Arafat has denied the allegation.