A senior Palestinian official said Wednesday that US President George W. Bush sentenced to death the Middle East peace process after he adopted the views of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive committee member Yasser Abed Rabbo told reporters that adopting Sharon's views means that President Bush "executed the Palestinian cause and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people."

Commenting on Bush's and Sharon's statements in their joint news conference held after their meeting in Washington, Abed Rabbo said "accepting Sharon's statements would set his hand free to implement his policy of expansion."

"Sharon has completely and unilaterally deleted the essential issues for the Palestinians such as the refugees issue, the 1967 borders," said Abed Rabbo.

He said that the views of Sharon "deprives the Palestinian people from having their own independence and make them living their life forever inside an area surrounded by the security wall and also living into cantons and prisons."

"The US acceptance of such plans and views means that it cancelled the roadmap plan for peace in the Middle East and all the previous agreements sponsored by the United States and signed between Israel and the Palestinians," Abed Rabbo said.

He asked, "Why does the United States give itself the right to draw the borders of the others without any negotiations between us and the Israelis?" "These steps carried out by the United States " means replacing the roadmap and reinforcing the settlements' blocks existence."

Meanwhile, Abbas Zaki, a senior Fatah leader and member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), told reporters that President Bush's adoption of the views of Sharon "is against the international legitimacy and it looks like shooting the bullet of mercy at the dying peace process."

"The United States is once again approving that it uses a double policy, and approves that it is biased to the Israeli side," Zaki said. "This a fatal mistake the United States is falling in that it responds to Sharon's demands."

He said that the Palestinian leadership and their Palestinian people would never accept this, adding, "no one accepts the US policy that is totally one-sided."

He said that the Palestinian people are now standing before a new reality "after the United States fired the bullet of mercy at the peace process."

"The one who speaks about depriving the Palestinian refugees from returning back to their homes and lands, and changes the legal borders and turns the Palestinian territories into prisons and cantons is totally mistaken," said Zaki.

He reiterated that the United States would never find "one single Palestinian who would cooperate with the United States and Israel in such a big trick and deceive."

He called for holding as immediate as possible an international conference similar to the Madrid peace conference held in 1993 " following the coverage that the United States has given to Israel."