Powell Meets Arafat for Second Time [AP - WP]
Palestinian Leader Calls for U.S., International Action
By Barry Schweid
AP Diplomatic Writer
Wednesday, April 17, 2002; 5:35 AM
JERUSALEM –– A bitter Yasser Arafat wound up more than two hours of talks with Secretary of State Colin Powell on Wednesday by demanding that the Bush administration and the international community act together to break his isolation. He accused Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of reoccupying the West Bank after promising to pull back.
"They are continuing their aggression against the Palestinian people," Arafat said in a darkened hallway of his battered headquarters after seeing Powell off.
Powell made no immediate statement, but planned to hold a news conference later in Jerusalem before heading for home via Cairo, Egypt.
Winding down a 10-day Mideast peace mission, Secretary of State Colin Powell met Wednesday for a second time with Yasser Arafat at his shell-gutted headquarters to pursue a commitment from the Palestinian leader for some version of a cease-fire.
Powell, who also was trying to expand Israel's limited withdrawal from the West Bank, was flying home later in the day after a meeting in Cairo with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
"I think we are making progress and are looking forward to making more progress in the next 24 hours," Powell said in advance of his last day of meetings.
But his trip is producing few results.
Prior to Powell's arrival for the meeting with Arafat in Ramallah, top Arafat adviser Saeb Erekat expressed disappointment that Powell had not been able to engineer a full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.
"The situation is very grave," he said. "I don't know if we have a Palestinian Authority anymore." Notwithstanding U.S. calls a week ago for a total military pullback, he said, Israel "is deepening the occupation. The situation is worse than it was seven days ago."
Inside Arafat's Ramallah headquarters, where Palestinians patrolled with assault weapons, guards reported that conditions had improved somewhat since Powell's first visit on Sunday. They said Israel had turned up the water pressure, permitted more electricity to flow and allowed limited deliveries of food, bottled water and medical supplies.
Still, Makmoud Issa, in charge of Arafat's security force, said that conditions in "jail would be better."
"Our surroundings are bad," he said. "We've been surrounded by the Israelis for 20 days and we can't move."
In Bethlehem, heavy gunfire could be heard near the Church of the Nativity on Tuesday evening, with flares and gray smoke visible over the compound. The Israeli army confirmed sporadic gunfire exchanges but said its forces had not entered the compound, where Palestinian gunmen have been holed up for two weeks.
Earlier Tuesday, Israeli forces moved into a West Bank town and three villages near Jerusalem and imposed curfews as part of a high-security alert timed to Israel's Independence Day.
Palestinians condemned the new incursions, but Powell has tempered his public calls for a total and quick pullout now that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has announced a pullout from all but Ramallah and Bethlehem within a week.
In any event, Israeli officials said the withdrawal would not preclude efforts to arrest Fuad Shobaki, whom they accused of overseeing attacks on Israel and the abortive shipment of 50 tons of Iranian weapons to the Palestinians.
And, the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they remained determined to arrest the plotters of the assassination last October of Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi.
In at least one major respect, Powell has made gains.
He started out determined to push Israel and the Palestinians toward a peacemaking process, and he departs the region with a conference quickly taking shape.
Sharon said the conference probably would be held in June in the United States. A site has not been selected.
In an interview with Israel TV, Sharon appeared to drop his opposition to involving Arafat. Sharon said that who represents the Palestinians is "a secondary issue."
"It's not important to me which of them will be here," he said.
Sharon's spokesman, Raanan Gissin, said a peace conference was not a certainty. "The Americans think this is very important," he said.
Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and perhaps Morocco were possible participants, Sharon told Israel TV. An alternative is to have the Arab League represent the Arabs and possibly invite the European Union and Russia. The United States would be represented as well.
Powell had hoped for a cease-fire and an immediate Israeli military pullback from Palestinian cities and villages as Bush has demanded more than once.
Powell has steered clear of embracing a formal cease-fire because such an agreement would be considered broken with every hostile incident. He said he was working on something like it without a "specific term."
In his last Mideast mission nearly a year ago, Powell called for seven days of quiet before getting back to the negotiating table – a requirement that proved impossible.
The focus of the last stage of Powell's 10-day trip is how to stop the fighting and how to pin down Israeli-Palestinian security arrangements to maintain calm in the West Bank, Israeli officials said.
U.S. and Palestinian officials were holding "good conversations," Powell said before meeting with a group of Palestinian professionals.
However, Palestinian and U.S. officials failed to agree on a statement condemning suicide bombings and calling for an Israeli withdrawal from West Bank areas, said a senior Palestinian official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The United States objected to a Palestinian addition calling for an end to Israel's occupation and establishment of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital, among other provisions.
In Washington, presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer said Powell was exploring a number of avenues to create an environment in which political negotiations can begin.
"He's hard at work and doing an excellent job at it," Fleischer said as White House officials were saying privately that Powell's reports to Bush had become slightly more optimistic.
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