Special report: Mideast peace conference

    RAMALLAH, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian National Authority (PNA) on Saturday appealed for the United States to force Israel carrying out obligations as part of a U.S.-backed peace plan.

    Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Voice of Palestine radio that "We loudly ask the U.S. administration to act as the judge and compel Israel to implement its commitments which the Road Map plan specified."

    Erekat's remarks were in response to an Israeli tender to expand a West Bank settlement though the first phase of the Road Map called on Israel to freeze settlement activities and the natural grow of the settlements.

    Erekat pointed out that the tender comes about a week after the end of Annapolis peace conference which set on Dec. 12 as the time for Israel and the PNA to start negotiating a lasting solution.

    "If Israel goes on, this will destroy all the efforts that aim at launching a meaningful peace process leading to end the Israeli occupation which started in the 1967," Erekat added.

    Meanwhile, Erekat said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would visit the region on Dec. 19 while President Bush pays a visit there. "Rice will follow up the negotiations on the final-status."

    He also revealed that the Israeli government had initially decided to let 26 West Bank residents, exiled in Gaza, to return back to home while talks still in place regarding 13 others whom Israel deported to Europe in 2002.