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Arabs, Israel signal interest in peace talks

JERUSALEM - With three U.S. envoys coming to assess the state of the Middle East conflict in talks beginning today, Israelis and Palestinians both made gestures Wednesday intended to show good faith in the stalled peace process.

The Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, offered qualified support for an Israeli plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, but only as one part of a larger peace effort.

Meanwhile, Israeli security forces clashed with stone-throwing Jewish settlers at one of two uninhabited settlement outposts that were dismantled in the West Bank.

PALE, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Gunfire resounded early today as NATO troops surrounded a building in Pale, the city where top war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic has taken refuge. But their quarry eluded them.

Two helicopters landed in front of the building. Soldiers carried two people out on stretchers, and the choppers flew off.

Karadzic, the leader of Bosnia's Serbs during the republic's ethnic war, has been indicted by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, on suspicion of war crimes.

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Kofi Annan presented his own plan to reunify Cyprus on Wednesday after Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders failed to agree on how to unite the long-divided island.

Cypriots on the Greek and Turkish sides will vote simultaneously, but separately, on the plan April 24. If both sides accept, a unified Cyprus will join the European Union on May 1.

If either side rejects the plan, only the Greek Cypriot side will become part of the EU. Annan's blueprint proposes to establish a Swiss-style federal government overseeing two states with independent identities.