Jericho (West Bank), June 29: US President George W Bush's National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, has invited Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas to visit Washington, a senior official Palestinian said. Rice asked Abbas to come to Washington "in the coming weeks" to meet with Bush, said the official, who asked to remain anonymous.

The invitation was made during a meeting in Jericho between Rice and the Palestinian Prime Minister yesterday.

Bush had announced during a June 4 summit in Aqaba, Jordan that he would invite Abbas to Washington.

The Aqaba summit had launched the roadmap, a US-backed peace plan that calls on the Palestinians to curb terror attacks and requires that Israel freeze all Jewish settlement activity and dismantle illegal outposts as the first steps leading to the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.
Rice arrived earlier yesterday on a trip to press the White House's efforts to pull the two sides back from the brink, after more than 60 people were killed earlier this month in a wave of tit-for-tat violence.

During the meeting with Abbas, the Palestinian side called for a freeze on Israeli settlements and the release by Israel of Palestinians prisoners, including Marwan Barghouti, West Bank chief of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement who has been held since 2002, the Palestinian official said.

Rice, whose trip follows US Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit to the region last week, is to meet with Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today, defence minister Shaul Mofaz and foreign minister Sylvan Shalom.
Bureau Report