PM Sharon meets Secretary Powell in Washington. (AP)

	Assad rejects Sharon's offer to talk
	Palestinians protest Sharon's U.S. visit
	Mr. Sharon goes to Washington
	Arafat calls for talks; no plans for Arafat-Sharon meeting
	Colin Powell presses Israel and Palestinians with no results
	Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
	Prime Minister's Office
	Al-Awda, The Palestinian Right to Return Coalition

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will meet with President Bush today and present his diplomatic plan. Sharon will reiterate Israel's stand that negotiations with the Palestinians can only resume "after a cessation of hostilities, and when stability has been restored."

Sharon's plan would "restart the negotiating process by proposing a multi-stage, long-term interim agreement based on something akin to a non-belligerency accord without a set of specific deadlines and timetables, but with a mutually-agreed-upon set of expectations." Sharon's staff circulated details of the plan in a position paper.

Sharon's diplomatic plan emphasizes the following points:

Security - "Joint efforts and cooperation to combat terrorism and the terror infrastructure in the Palestinian Authority territories and abroad."

Economic Cooperation - "Special emphasis on the development of joint projects that create interdependence where both sides share the gains of a successful project, and both sides have much to lose." One such project is the creation of large seawater desalination plants that can foster such interdependence, creating "a vested interest in peace."

Development of people to people peace projects - "These will include stopping incitement in books and the media, while fostering educational programs geared to teaching peace to both sides, starting with school-age children."

If the Palestinian Authority agrees to a long-term agreement,

	"Israel will not negotiate while Israeli civilians and soldiers are under fire." - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

Israel would work with it "toward the establishment of a Palestinian entity with agreed-upon security limitations." As defined in the paper, these limitations would include demilitarization, Israeli control of the border crossings, access and control of airspace, and no Palestinian treaties with hostile countries.

Sharon's multi-stage diplomatic proposal with the Palestinians includes giving them contiguous territory so they do not have to pass through Israeli roadblocks. According to Sharon's office, the Prime Minister made this comment in his meeting yesterday with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and again in a briefing he held with a group of leading American journalists.

Sharon's position plan does not advocate the uprooting of Jewish settlements, denying the possibility suggested by Ze'ev Schiff in Ha'aretz yesterday. In most regards, especially the issues of Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees, Sharon's plan calls for a continuation of the status quo.

In his speech yesterday to the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Prime Minister Sharon said, "Arafat must understand, first and foremost, that he will gain nothing from violence. Israel will not negotiate while Israeli civilians and soldiers are under fire."

American Secretary of State, Colin Powell, echoed this sentiment in his speech to AIPAC. "First and foremost the violence must stop... Leaders have the responsibility to denounce it, strip it of its legitimacy, stop it," Powell said.

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