It's time for Israel to cede land: Sharon

Sharon's remarks, published in the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, came as his Cabinet readied for a vote on the US-backed "roadmap" peace plan that the Israeli leader accepted on Friday.

"The time has come to divide this piece of land between us and the Palestinians," Sharon said in his first publicly published comments admitting a readiness to cede land for peace.

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"No one is going to teach me about the strips of land that we will be asked to leave, I am no less connected to them from those who are speaking from up high," said Sharon, a long-time leading advocate of the Jewish settlement lobby.

"But you have to be realistic about what we can and cannot continue to hold," he added.

The road map sets out reciprocal steps leading to a Palestinian state by 2005 and a freeze on Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

In the final stage of the plan, Israel will also be asked to dismantle some of the 145 settlements it built on lands the Palestinians seek for their state.

AFP adds: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon opened a cabinet meeting Sunday morning determined to win the government's approval for the internationally drafted Middle East peace roadmap, Israeli radio reported.

Sharon huddled with members of his right-wing Likud party ahead of what was expected to be a turbulent cabinet session, with some Likud ministers and other hardliners openly opposed to the plan, drafted by Washington, Moscow, the United Nations and European Union.