Israel says it is ready to resume peace talks

Israel's Foreign Minister, Silvan Shalom, has told the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, that Israel is interested in restarting peace negotiations with the Palestinians for the first time in more than two years.

Mr Shalom's words follow intense speculation in the Israeli press about new talks. He said the appointment of the new Palestinian Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, made new talks possible. The Israeli government has been refusing to speak to Yasser Arafat, who is now supposed to be marginalised.

But international diplomats and observers are sceptical. They point to the contrast between the talk from Ariel Sharon's government and its deeds on the ground.

President Bush's promise to release the "roadmap" peace plan when a new Palestinian prime minister was named has been largely forgotten in the midst of the Iraq war. Abu Mazen was appointed more than a week ago, yet the roadmap remains unreleased.

"The issue is the release of the roadmap," said one international diplomat. "It is the format for any talks."

The peace plan, drawn up by the Middle East "quartet" – the US, Russia, the European Union and the UN – is based on President Bush's call for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and calls for one to be established within three years.

But the Israeli government is pushing hard for more than 100 changes to the peace plan, including dropping all references to an "independent" Palestinian state. Unnamed Israeli sources have been busy briefing that Israel has drawn up an alternative plan if its changes are not accepted.

And while all eyes have been on the war, Mr Sharon's government has been creating new "facts on the ground". It has announced plans to reroute its new "security fence" – known as "Israel's Berlin Wall" – so that it will cut deep into the West Bank in order to put Jewish settlements on the Israeli side of the fence.

The Israeli government says the fence, a series of concrete walls, watchtowers and fences, is designed to stop Palestinian suicide bombers and other militants crossing into Israel. But Palestinians and international observers fear it is intended to become a new de facto border, vastly reducing the territory on which Palestinians want to form a state and cutting Palestinian farmers off from their best agricultural land.

As one diplomat said: "Essentially, if you have the wall you can't really have the roadmap, and if you have the roadmap you can't really have the wall."