Rice reaffirms US stand against colony expansion

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reiterated yesterday Washington's refusal to support Israeli plans to expand colonies in the West Bank.

Rice denied reports from Israeli officials and some US officials - that the Bush administration had struck an arrangement with Israel that would allow some colonies to grow in Palestinian areas.

Israeli officials had said that the administration would allow for growth within colonies as long as additional housing units did not exceed existing construction lines.

The US-backed "roadmap" for peace calls for Israel to freeze colony growth.

US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said, "We have restated our fundamental concern regarding any unilateral action that could prejudice the rights of other parties or the outcome of final status of negotiations or adversely affect the situation of people living in the areas."

He added in a recent briefing. "We'll continue to follow the matter closely."

But former ambassador Eugene Bird of the Washington-based Council for the National Interest told Gulf News, the Israeli plan "shows that the Sharon government intends to retain the large Jewish colonies on the West Bank."

The construction threatens to cut off Palestinian access to East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians are insisting on establishing as their capital of their future state.

Bird warned, "The construction jeopardises the current hopeful mode for peace, and the US must seriously consider sanctions against Israel to show its support for eventual peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and not just offer muted criticism to Tel Aviv."

Meanwhile, Rice said the Bush administration is determined to push for greater democracy over the next four years, including "pressing for competitive presidential elections this year in Egypt and women's right to vote in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries."

Rice, in an interview with the Washington Post that was published yesterday, said she was "guided less by a fear that extremists would replace authoritarian governments than by a strong certainty that the Middle East was not going to stay stable anyway."

Extremism, she said, is rooted in the "absence of other channels for political activity", and so "when you know that the status quo is no longer defencible, then you have to be willing to move in another direction".

Although hopeful about democratisation in Egypt, Rice cautioned that Egyptian elections "will not look like American competitive presidential elections."

On the future of democracy in Syria, Rice said, "The hardest one in many ways is to predict in Syria because I don't think the process has really begun in Syria."

The writer is an Arab journalist based in Washington