145;Sharon doesn146;t want to implement road map146;

On Friday, Israel freed 73 Palestinian prisoners in what it called a gesture to the peace plan, one day after killing a Palestinian militant commander. Palestinian officials dismissed the release as a sham because the 73 had been jailed for petty crimes rather than militant activity and were due to be released soon anyway.

During a recent trip to the Gulf region, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of jeopardising the peace plan by its repeated assaults on Palestinians despite a ceasefire agreement.

Shaath told the Kuwait daily that the US-backed 8216;8216;road map8217;8217; was 8216;8216;100 times better8217;8217; than the 1993 Oslo peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians or the 1991 Madrid conference which kicked off the sputtering Arab-Israeli peace process.

The 8216;8216;road map8217;8217; calls for reciprocal moves toward a Palestinian state by 2005 in the West Bank and Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in an interview with the Italian daily La Republica published on Friday he wanted to move ahead with the peace plan, but needed more movement from the Palestinians.

8216;8216;If the Palestinian Authority does not take care of the terrorists we will have to continue to do it ourselves. But I have only one political wish: to move forward with the road map,8217;8217; he said.

He had made the comments shortly after Palestinian suicide bombers killed two people in back-to-back attacks.

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