Palestinian President Yasser Arafat called on Tuesday for a return to West Asia peace talks as Israeli troops raided more West Bank cities after a suicide bomber killed a baby and her grandmother at a cafe in Israel.US President George W. Bush condemned the bombing and US officials said the administration was debating whether to set a negotiating timetable for a peace settlement. Setting such a timetable would be a shift in policy for Bush who has said in the past that it was up to the parties in the region.‘‘The Tenet understandings and the George Mitchell report should be implemented and we should come back to the negotiations with a sponsorship of the international community and the participation of the Arab sides,’’ Arafat said in Ramallah.He was referring to a plan to revive Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation produced by CIA Director George Tenet last June and a truce-to-talks scheme devised by a commission led by former US Senator George Mitchell.Arafat also vowed to have a new government within 10 days during a meeting of the Palestinian leadership in his Ramallah headquarters, Cabinet Secretary Ahmed Abdel Rahman said on Tuesday.‘‘The Cabinet should change within a week, at latest in 10 days,’’ Rahman said. The move, decided on at a meeting on Monday night, would aim at streamlining the government as well as making its ministries more efficient and frugal, the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam said. The Palestinian leadership has also recommended that the much-anticipated legislative and presidential elections be held in December this year, the official Wafa agency reported.‘‘The elections for the Legislative Council and the presidency can take place in December 2002,’’ the leadership said in a statement on Monday after a meeting in Ramallah chaired by Arafat.Meanwhile, Israeli plainclothes police detained the Palestinian Governor of Jerusalem on Tuesday, saying he was in the city illegally.
