Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher asked the Bush administration on Friday to press Israel to immediately freeze all settlement construction, said reports.
Maher also called for an international observer force to oversee the shaky ceasefire between the Israelis and Palestinians, according to the Associated Press.
The call for observers was quickly seconded by Nabil Shaath, a senior Palestinian negotiator, after a meeting with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, said the AP.
"He's open to studying it. He heard me out," Shaath told reporters afterward.
Israel wants a cooling-off period after violence is halted before starting down the road to negotiations with the Palestinians.
But Maher said "there is a sense of urgency" and the Palestinians need to see results of American intervention.
"Otherwise we will have a situation where the ceasefire will break," Maher told reporters at breakfast.
Powell received word of an attack that killed to Israeli soldiers while meeting with Shaath, and conferred with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon by telephone, said AFP.
"The secretary expressed deep concern over the killing of the two Israeli soldiers today and stressed the importance of all parties adhering to the ceasefire and working towards full implementation" of the recommendations of the Mitchell fact-finding commission, said Philip Reeker, the deputy State Department spokesman.
In Washington, Shaath said any delay in talks should be short and even overlap with so-called confidence-building measures proposed by the fact-finding panel headed by former US senator George Mitchell.
One such measure is a freeze on construction at Jewish settlements in the West Bank and in Gaza.
Maher said the Bush administration approached the Middle East at the outset like "hot potatoes," but the US attitude has changed, the AP quoted him as saying.
Powell is planning a three-day trip to the region next week with a dual purpose.
He will try to shore up the ceasefire that CIA Director George Tenet arranged two weeks ago, and work on a timeline toward a freeze and other recommendations of the Mitchell commission.
"I believe an active American role is very important," Maher said.
Any cooling-off period should not last long, he said, and it is very important to work for a quick settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
In the meantime, he said, "it is necessary to have a way of monitoring the ceasefire" with international observers, including the United States.
"The Israelis want to be the judges of what happens," Maher said. "They think what they say is the law of the land."
Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.
Asked if Egypt would like to see the kind of freeze Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered during those negotiations, Maher smiled and recalled that Begin removed all Jewish settlements from Sinai as part of the accord.
Begin also returned all of the territory to Egypt, which had lost it in the 1967 Middle East war, and abandoned its air bases and oil fields.
Powell's pre-trip consultations continued Friday with Shaath, while Maher was calling on Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, said AFP - Albawaba.com
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