Agencies

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas heads to Washington on Tuesday for a first meeting with Barack Obama, hoping the US president will turn his words of support for a Palestinian state into deeds.

Their meeting at the White House on Thursday comes 10 days after talks between Obama and Israel's right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The two voiced their differences over the concept of a Palestinian state which the United States and the rest of the international community support.

"There are many subjects we need to discuss with President Obama about the peace process ... including a settlement freeze which must be implemented and Israel's acceptance of a two-state solution," Abbas told Palestinian television on Sunday.

More active US support for the Palestinian quest for independence is all the more crucial for Abbas since Netanyahu has so far failed to publicly back the creation of a Palestinian state or to freeze settlement activity.

"President Obama is serious in his desire to make sorting out the Palestinian issue his priority in the Middle East but implementation of any plan depends on President Obama's ability to put things on the right track," said Abbas.

Following the relaunch of the peace process under US auspices in November 2007, Abbas and Netanyahu's predecessor Ehud Olmert met more than 20 times but the negotiations, suspended since the Gaza war in December, achieved no tangible results.

"Resuming negotiations will be impossible so long as Israel does not accept a two-state solution and stop settlement activity," Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP.

"Not only must Israel accept a Palestinian state but a mechanism must be put in place to reach that goal," he said.

"We will hear what President Obama has to say on these points and will then proceed to a global evaluation of the situation," the spokesman said.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat considers that "Netanyahu's defiance was very clear in Washington".

"President Obama has the choice of either obligating the government of Israel to accept the two states and by doing this he will turn a page in the region’. Or continue treating Israel as a country above the law with double standards thus closing the chapter of peace and pushing the region into the hands of extremists," Erekat told AFP.

Erekat considers there is no need for a new peace initiative and stresses that existing plans, such as the roadmap, include the two-state vision which former US president George W. Bush backed during his first mandate.

"We do not need new plans since all the existing ones have a common denominator which is a two-state solution. What is required from President Obama is to transform it from a vision to a realistic political track."

Abbas will travel to Washington with Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who last week formed a new Cabinet from which he continued to exclude members of Hamas.

Hamas has suggested the trip would be a waste of time at best.

"We don't expect anything from this meeting other than new pressure by the US administration on Abbas to make new concessions for the benefit of the Israeli entity," Hamas Spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told AFP.

Israel to have largest ever defence drill

Israel is planning its biggest ever civil defence drill next week that will include five days of simulated enemy rocket attacks, Israeli officials said Monday.

Government officials said the exercise, which kicks off May 31 under the name Turning Point III, is not meant to threaten Israel's neighbours.

Israel has mainly focused on Iran when it comes to the issue of possible rocket attacks, and has been gravely concerned over the Persian nation's nuclear programme, its development of long-range missiles and repeated statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about Israel's destruction.

Israel maintains Iran is building nuclear weapons and rejects Iran's insistence that its nuclear programme is peaceful.

Defence officials, meanwhile, said the Turning Point series of exercises was designed to implement lessons learned from Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah, when the Lebanese militia fired nearly 4,000 Katyusha rockets across the border at Israel.

Similar drills were held in 2007 and 2008, but a military statement said the 2009 exercise would be "the largest and most comprehensive yet".

The statement did not give details, but public service announcements broadcast on local TV and radio said air raid sirens will sound across the country, and all Israelis will be told to seek cover in air raid shelters or bombproof rooms in their homes, schools and workplaces.

In last year's drill, the sirens failed to sound in some places, including parts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Israeli officials also sought to allay fears among Arab neighbours, such as Lebanon and Syria, that the exercise could be a cover for a military strike.

The last such attack was in September 2007, when Israeli planes bombed a target in Syria which Damascus said was an unused military installation. But foreign media reports, some quoting unidentified US officials, said the strike hit a nuclear facility made with North Korean help and modelled on the North's main nuclear reactor in Yongbyon.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak said Monday that Turning Point III will be a civil defence drill rather than a military manoeuvre

He echoed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Sunday told the Cabinet the exercise would "coordinate among the various civilian and military bodies".

Cabinet ministers would convene as part of the drill.

Israel's Barak to US next week for Iran talks

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak will fly to Washington next week for talks with his counterpart Robert Gates and senior officials set to focus on Iran's nuclear ambitions, an official said Monday.

The defence minister was also planning to meet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Obama's National Security Adviser James Jones and special Middle East envoy George Mitchell, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Barak's visit comes on the heels of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's White House meeting with President Barack Obama last week, which revealed discord between the two close allies on the stagnant Middle East peace process.

However, Obama eased Israeli concerns over his efforts to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear programme in direct negotiations, with the president saying the success of the dialogue would be assessed by the year's end.

"This dialogue ought to be short and should have milestones to check whether it is serious or not," Barak told army radio.

"I believe the chances that talks will halt Iran's nuclear programme are very low."

The former chief of staff reiterated that the Jewish state would not rule out military action against nuclear sites in the Islamic republic.

"Israel believes that no option should be removed from the table," he said. Israel, widely considered to be the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear armed power, suspects Iran is using its nuclear programme to develop atomic weapons, a charge Tehran has long denied.

Barak was also expected to discuss US arms sales to Israel, including a request to buy up to 75 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in a deal worth as much as $15.2 billion and other advanced weapon systems, the official said.