After a week of harsh language and tough talk, Palestinian presidential candidate Mahmoud Abbas said today he would seek to negotiate with Israel after the January 9th elections. Abbas is the frontrunner to succeed the late Yasser Arafat as president of the Palestinian Authority.

'After the elections, we will start negotiations,' Abbas said at a campaign stop in the West Bank Thursday. 'Ariel Sharon is an elected leader and we will negotiate with him. We will put the road map on the table and say that we are ready to implement it completely.'

He said resumption of peace talks was his first priority after the elections. Despite saying he did not support violence, Abbas indicated that 'Resistance is a Palestinian right, but here the balance of power is broken, so we have to use peaceful means because it is more useful.'

Israeli government officials welcomed Abbas's desire to resume peace negotiations. A spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said, 'The prime minister has said that immediately after the elections he will meet with whoever gets elected to coordinate security issues, and maybe also to coordinate the disengagement plan.'

Sharon has pledged to dismantle all Israeli settlements on the Gaza Strip and four in the West Bank. If the withdrawal can be successfully coordinated with the Palestinian Authority and Egypt, it could be the first step in restoring mutual confidence between the two sides that has been destroyed by the violence of the second intifada.