A United States envoy to the Middle East has called on Israel and the Palestinians to take real steps to put into motion a US-backed peace "road map" whose revival awaits a still-unscheduled meeting of their prime ministers.
"We very much hope that concrete steps can be taken by all sides on all of the issues necessary to see progress restored," US official David Satterfield, asked about the road map, told reporters after meeting Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie.
Satterfield, deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, met Qurie two days after declaring that Palestinian government reform key to the peace plan had all but ground to a halt.
In an assessment prepared for the "Quartet" of Middle East peacemakers - the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia - Satterfield also accused Israel of failing to ease tough travel restrictions on Palestinians.
The road map, the most ambitious move Washington has made towards ending three years of violence and reviving peacemaking, calls for reciprocal steps leading to the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.
Speaking to reporters, Qurie said no date had been set for talks with his Israeli counterpart, Ariel Sharon, on moving along the road map. Israel Radio said a summit was unlikely in the coming week and officials planned more preparatory meetings.
In an interview with the mass circulation daily Yedioth Ahronoth yesterday, Qurie warned Israel that an internationally condemned barrier it is building inside the West Bank would kill the peace plan.