Sharon, Abbas ready to meet

When asked if he was willing to meet Abbas, Sharon said; "When they would like to meet, we will meet."

He also said that he would try to discuss with the Palestinian leadership his disengagement plan, under which all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip will be evacuated as well as four other enclaves in the West Bank.

On the other hand, Abbas said: "After the elections, I’m ready to meet at any time with Sharon."

Abbas, who replaced the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, is the most favorite candidate to succeed Arafat in the presidential elections scheduled for Jan. 9.

"There’s nothing to prevent a meeting with Ariel Sharon or the Israeli government but it is essential to take the necessary time to convene such a meeting," Abbas told reporters in Cairo.

Sharon, who completely boycotted Arafat, met many times with Abbas last year when he was a Palestinian Prime Minister.

Israel has refused to hold any talks with Arafat, allegedly accusing him of supporting violence in the region. Arafat, who died of an unknown disease in a French hospital on Nov. 11, always rejected the allegation.

Since Arafat’s death, Sharon has softened his opposition to Palestinian Authority’s involvement in the planned withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank.

"I am going to make every effort to coordinate our disengagement plan with the new Palestinian government — one that can assume control over areas we evacuate," Sharon said.

However, Abbas said that the Palestinians were not yet ready to ensure security in Gaza but hoped it would be possible. "Now we have some sort of chaos, especially in Gaza," Abbas said.

"We are ready to take (Gaza) when we rebuild our security apparatus. If you tell me (do it) now, I’ll say I cannot, but I’m working very hard to rebuild the security apparatus." He added.

Sharon also promised that Israel would stop its military operations in the Palestinian cities during the voting process.

Israel "will take all the necessary steps to enable them to conduct their elections with as little interference as possible — by opening the roads and taking our forces out of their towns," he said.

Also Sunday, a spokesman for Sharon said that Israel would seek to use its talks with Abbas "to exploit a window of opportunity" that was created by the death of Arafat and move ahead with the stalled “road map” peace plan.

Palestinians accuse Israel of failing to stick to the road map’s demands that call upon the Jewish state to suspend "all settlement activity" on Palestinian territories, seized in the 1967 Middle East war.