Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has expressed his deep concern over the support which US President George W. Bush had extended to the disengagement plan proposed by Israel.

Abdullah's concern was voiced in his separate letters dated April 16, 2004 to Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, Russian President Vladimir Putin and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said a statement released by the Prime Minister's Department on Saturday.

Bush rendered his support to the disengagement plan during Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's recent visit to Washington.

Abdullah said that such support would only encourage Israel to continue ignoring Palestinian concerns and would not help in the fulfilment of the objective of "the roadmap" plan.

The Israeli plan did not address the core issue of the conflictand might even cause the entire peace process to be disrupted, he added.

Abdullah also expressed his support for the efforts of the quartet members including the United States to achieve the objective of bringing into being a Palestine state that is viable,sovereign and independent.

He also stressed that the Palestinians must be included in the discussions because the whole matter concerned them directly.

Abdullah appealed to the United Nations to play a bigger role with the deployment of a UN Peacekeeping Force or the placement ofan international monitoring mechanism to monitor the implementation of the roadmap for peace in the Middle East.

The "quartet" of sponsors behind the Middle East "road map" forpeace are the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States.

Source: Xinhua