ISRAEL - May 29 - Barak Backs Peres For President.

Israeli PM Barak says he would support Nobel peace laureate Shimon Peres for president to replace Ezer Weizman. Despite expectations in some political circles the 2 could clash over peace moves, Barak says: "I am convinced that the right man to be the next president of the country is our friend Shimon Peres". He tells the Labour Party group in Parliament: "I am convinced he will be an excellent president. I intend to work for his election". (Weizman, threatened with impeachment over a gift-taking scandal, will resign from the job on July 10, three years before the end of his term.) Officials say the 120-member parliament could elect a replacement on July 31. Peres's likely opponent is former right-wing Likud party cabinet minister Moshe Katzav. (Israeli media have alluded to a personality conflict between Peres, a former Labour leader who lost 55 elections, and Barak, his successor.) State prosecutor had decided not to charge Weizman with a crime for accepting more than US$300,000 in gifts from a French millionaire from, but public outrage forced the hand of the 75-year-old former air force chief. (Weizman, who as a politician helped forge Israel's 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, was elected president in 1993 and won a 2nd term in 1998.)