MIDDLE EAST: The Israeli Prime Minister,Mr Ariel Sharon, has said he plans to stabilise his government by bringing in the centre-left Labour Party to shore up his shattered coalition and ensure his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip is implemented. Peter Hirschberg reports from Jerusalem
"We are facing fateful decisions and it is important that there be a broad and stable coalition," Mr Sharon told a gathering of senior journalists in Tel Aviv yesterday, just a day after he fired his main coalition partner, the centrist Shinui party, after it voted against the 2005 budget.
The move leaves the Israeli leader with only 40 seats - those of his ruling Likud party - in the 120-seat parliament.
Mr Sharon also said he planned to include the ultra-Orthodox parties in a new coalition. If the prime minister fails, he will be forced to go to early elections, which could jeopardise his Gaza pull-out plan.
Any party joining his coalition, Mr Sharon said, would have to back his unilateral withdrawal plan, which "will be implemented, period. I repeat, it will be implemented, period."
Since the death of Yasser Arafat, the prime minister has expressed some willingness to co-ordinate a withdrawal with the Palestinians. He reiterated this view yesterday, but said co-ordination was dependent on whether a new Palestinian leadership emerged after the January 9th elections for the Palestinian Authority which "fights terror and dismantles its infrastructure".
The Israeli leader also made it clear he had no intention of releasing popular Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti, who submitted his candidacy for the elections on Wednesday and who is serving five life terms in an Israeli jail.
After the militant Hamas group declared earlier this week that it would boycott the elections for a successor to Mr Arafat, Islamic Jihad announced yesterday that it would follow suit.
On reports that the Syrian President, Mr Bashar Assad, was willing to renew peace talks with Israel, Mr Sharon said he was willing to meet him, but only if he ceased harbouring Palestinian militants in Damascus. The Syrian Foreign Minister, Mr Farouk A-Shara, rejected Mr Sharon's conditions as "not acceptable".