ISRAEL: With US officials displaying displeasure, aides close to Mr Ariel Sharon yesterday tried to play- down a declaration by a cabinet minister from the prime minister's ruling Likud Party that Israel was planning to massively expand settlements on the Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
According to a poll published yesterday, meanwhile, some 25 per cent of Israelis believe their country should forego its presumed nuclear weapons programme if the Middle East becomes a zone free of weapons of mass destruction.
The Israeli Agriculture Minister, Mr Yisrael Katz, who heads a government sub-committee on rural development, on Wednesday publicised the plan that would see some 900 families added to the sparsely-populated heights over the next three years and tens of millions of dollars pumped into tourism and agriculture there.
Publication of the plan comes only two months after the Syrian President, Mr Bashar Assad, told the New York Times in an interview that he was ready to resume negotiations with Israel.
Israeli officials have dismissed Mr Assad's overtures as an attempt to curry favour with Washington.
Aides to Mr Sharon yesterday scrambled to squash assertions that the Golan plan is meant to strengthen Israel's grip on the strategic heights and is a message to Mr Assad that Israel has no intention of ceding the area, which it annexed in 1981. The move has never been recognised by the international community.
One senior aide said the plan had no political significance and was similar to development projects implemented in other parts of Israel.
The US, however, alarmed by the Golan pronouncements, on Wednesday repeated its traditional opposition to any settlement construction. The deputy State Department spokesman, Mr Adam Ereli, said Israel needed to clarify its position.
The Syrian Foreign Minister, Mr Isa Daweesh, denounced the measure in Damascus, saying Israel was "deluded that it can achieve something by relying on power and occupation".
The polling of the Israeli public on the nuclear issue comes in the wake of the announcement last month by Libya that it was abandoning its WMD program - a move which has placed Israel under greater scrutiny.
While Israel has never confessed to having nuclear weapons - it follows a policy of "nuclear ambiguity" - the poll, commissioned by state-run Israel Radio, showed that a majority of Israelis (77.4 per cent) believed their country had the bomb.
Many Israelis view a nuclear capability as the ultimate deterrent against hostile neighbours, although the poll revealed that 25.2 per cent were ready to give up their purported nuclear arms if the Middle East became a WMD-free zone. The poll showed 56.1 per cent opposed to such a move.
Israel's nuclear programme is shrouded in secrecy, although reports say it has produced some 200 warheads at its Dimona reactor in the south. Israeli nuclear whistleblower, Mr Mordechai Vanunu, who disclosed information about the country's programme to Britain's Sunday Times in 1986 and was jailed for 18 years, is due for release in April.
In the West Bank, Israeli forces yesterday arrested a Swedish member of parliament who joined several hundred demonstrators protesting against Israel's construction of the security barrier. He was to be freed last night and flown home.
In the northern West Bank city of Jenin, the Israeli army lifted a blockade which has been in effect since August last year, when the ceasefire declared by Palestinian militant groups collapsed.
A top aide to the Egyptian President, Mr Hosni Mubarak,met the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, in Ramallah yesterday in a bid to engineer a new ceasefire. "We, from our side, should take decisions and measures that can lead the way to a better future," Mr Osama el-Baz said after the meeting. "Then we hope the Israelis will do the same."