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Powell meets with Arafat to press for action against terrorists
By BARRY SCHWEID
The Associated Press
4/14/02 4:23 AM
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- With ambitious hopes of getting a cease-fire in place
and peacemaking started, Secretary of State Colin Powell met Sunday with Yasser
Arafat in his mostly destroyed Ramallah headquarters.
In their delayed talks, Powell planned to press Arafat to take "effective action" to
end
Palestinian attacks against Israel.
They were meeting in a dining room, seated at a long table with the Palestinian and
American aides at their side.
Powell, carrying a sheaf of papers and bearing a serious expression, entered the
compound in the embattled West Bank surrounded by helmeted U.S. security
personnel armed with submachine guns. He traveled the 12 miles from Jerusalem in
a motorcade of six armored vans.
Powell said nothing to reporters as he entered Arafat's headquarters, a structure
heavily damaged by Israeli shelling and gunfire. A gaping hole was torn in the
blackened exterior wall of his compound, which was marked by bullet tracks. Many
buildings have been reduced to piles of rubble.
Saeb Erekat, a top Arafat aide, met Powell outside the compound.
The heavily guarded visit where Arafat is confined by Israeli troops is bound to boost
Arafat's standing as the leader of the Palestinian people and the one Israel must deal
with to seek a peace accord.
Powell also is calling for restraint by Israeli forces on the West Bank and for
"unimpeded access to humanitarian organizations" for the Palestinian people caught
up in the 16-day Israeli siege.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has already dismissed any notion of making
peace with Arafat, whom he accuses of being responsible for a deadly rash of
suicide bombings.
But Powell is determined to begin a process that would culminate in Palestinian
statehood on land Israel captured from the Arabs in the 1967 Mideast war.
Powell decided to meet with Arafat after the Palestinian leader denounced terrorism
on Saturday in a statement the White House demanded.
The talks had been delayed 24 hours because Arafat initially ignored U.S. calls to
condemn the Friday attack of a suicide bomber near a Jerusalem marketplace,
which killed six and injured scores.
"We are condemning strongly all the attacks which are targeting civilians from both
sides and especially the attack that took place against Israeli citizens yesterday in
Jerusalem," Arafat said Saturday.
Arafat's statement, in Arabic, was distributed by the Palestinian news service WAFA
and was read several times on Palestinian television and radio, giving it the
circulation the Bush administration sought.
Arafat also lashed out at Israel's West Bank operation: "We also condemn very
strongly the massacre that was committed by the Israeli occupation troops against
our refugees in Jenin and against our people in Ramallah, Nablus and Tulkarem and
also the brutal aggression against the church in Bethlehem during the last two
weeks."
Israeli forces moved into more West Bank villages Saturday, and sporadic fighting
continued, especially in Nablus where seven Israeli tanks began shelling the main
local government complex.
The Israeli government dismissed the Palestinian leader's statement and noted that
the suicide bomber who struck Friday was sent by Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a militia
linked to Arafat's Fatah movement.
"We want deeds, not words," said Danny Ayalon, foreign policy adviser to Sharon.
"We cannot be impressed by any condemnation of their doings and their own
strategies, which continue."
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declined to make a judgment on
Powell's chances of securing a cease-fire and steering the two sides to peacemaking
and a Palestinian state.
Boucher said Arafat's statement contained "a number of interesting and positive
elements," including condemnation of terror and a reaffirmation of a Palestinian
commitment to a negotiated peace with Israel.
Also, the statement called for immediate implementation of a shelved cease-fire plan
prepared by CIA Director George Tenet, Boucher said.
"The secretary will work with Chairman Arafat and the Palestinian leadership to show
leadership and to help make these statements a reality, with effective action to bring
an end to terror and violence and an early resumption of a political process," Boucher
said.
It was disclosed Saturday that U.S. mediator Anthony Zinni had met Friday in Jericho
with Palestinian officials.
Powell consulted by telephone with King Abdullah II of Jordan, Egyptian Foreign
Minister Ahmed Maher, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and European officials
before deciding to meet Arafat.
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