Middle East officals to announce cease-fire

JERUSALEM -- President Bush will meet separately this spring with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, offering encouraging words about a Mideast peace process in which "people are becoming more trustworthy."\n"This is a time of hope, a time we can hope for a better day for the Palestinian and Israeli people both," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday as she ended two days of meetings in Israel and the West Bank.\nIn Washington, Bush said the background for peace talks has improved with Abbas' election.\n"Prime Minister Abbas comes to the table with a mandate from a lot of Palestinians," Bush told reporters at the end of a Cabinet meeting. "He has been through an election. He has been endorsed by the Palestinian people."\nHe said he was impressed by Abbas' commitment to fighting terror and by Israel's assistance in the Palestinian elections.\nLooking ahead to the talks in the spring, Bush said, "The meetings just indicate that there's more work to be done. And I look forward to meeting with them."\nThe president described the meetings as part of a process to build trust among all the parties with the objective of Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace. He said the process will involve Israelis, Palestinians, the United States, Europe and the United Nations.\n"What you're watching is a process unfolding where people are becoming more trustworthy," the president said.\nIn fact, Israeli and Palestinian officials said Monday that the two sides will declare a formal end to more than four years of fighting at Tuesday's Mideast summit.\nAnd sometime this month the so-called Quartet seeking Middle East peace -- the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union -- plan to meet in hopes of making further progress in the peace process.\nBush's Abbas invitation represents a significant shift from the U.S. position in recent years when he viewed former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as a major impediment to peace. The Bush administration refused to deal directly with Arafat and peace negotiations stalled.\nRice also said Lt. Gen. William E. Ward was named a new Palestinian "security coordinator" and would make his first trip to the region with the next two weeks.\n"The Palestinians will be the first to tell you that they need help" training, equipping and unifying their security forces, Rice said. She said Ward will have direct line to her.\nIn a visit to the West Bank on Monday, Rice also said the United States will provide more than $40 million in aid to the Palestinians during the next three months. At a news conference in Ramallah with Abbas, she called the aid a "quick action program" that would have an "immediate positive impact." The money would be used to create jobs and improve infrastructure, she said.\nAbbas thanked Rice for the U.S. assistance and for helping last year when Israel announced plans to seize some property owned by Palestinians in Israel.\n"We hope that the Israeli side also will meet its obligations because this is the only path" to achieve the ideal of the two states existing side by side in peace, Abbas said.