Ramallah | Sunday
US SECRETARY of State Colin Powell insisted on an end to Palestinian suicide bombings in what he called ”useful and constructive” talks with Yasser Arafat in the Palestinian leader’s Israeli-besieged West Bank headquarters on Sunday, a senior US official said.
Israeli tanks and troops and Kalashnikov-wielding Palestinians were in evidence as the chief US diplomat stepped past trash and shopping-cart barricades to confer for more than three hours with Arafat in their first meeting in five months.
Powell, who is trying to broker a ceasefire in 18 months of bloodshed, called the discussions ”useful and constructive” and said, ”We exchanged a variety of ideas and discussed steps how we can move forward”.
A senior US official quoted Powell as telling Arafat that ”the pattern of bombing is a barrier to moving forward”.
In two-and-a-half hours of talks with aides and 15 minutes one on one with Arafat, he repeatedly ”made clear that the bombings had to end”, the official said.
Calling the discussions ”long and serious”, Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rudeina said that the Palestinian leader ”informed Mr Powell of the situation on the ground and insisted on the necessity for an immediate Israeli withdrawal from all the Palestinian towns, villages, camps and other areas”.
”There was a clear and open exchange of opinions between the two sides but we want more efforts and pressure from the Americans to get out of this crisis and end the war and aggression declared by the Israeli government on the Palestinian people and leadership,” he said.
Arafat did not emerge from his battered headquarters after seeing Powell, but chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat also described the session as ”constructive”. Both sides said their staff would continue talks on Monday.
Israeli state radio said Powell was to confer with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon later in the day. Sharon’s office would not confirm the meeting but a US official said it would take place in Tel Aviv after a meeting in Jerusalem with Israeli President Moshe Katzav.
Powell is seeking progress towards halting the carnage that has cost some 2 000 lives in the region’s worst crisis since the 1991 Gulf War.
He scheduled the talks with Arafat only after the Palestinian issued a broad renunciation of terrorism on Saturday and condemned a new suicide bombing a day before it left seven people dead.
Sharon meanwhile has refused to say when he might pull his forces out of the Palestinian areas, including the cities of Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jenin and Nablus.
Powell’s motorcade arrived under heavy security from helmeted US guards after driving through a dusty, desolate landscape of deserted streets, pools of sewage, wrecked houses and shops, and abandoned cars.
About a dozen Israeli troops and two tanks were deployed in the area as Powell pulled up to Arafat’s headquarters, pock-marked with tank and machine-gun fire and under siege since March 29.
He was met by Erakat who walked him to a second-floor dining room where he held his first talks with a drawn-looking Arafat since a session in November outside the UN General Assembly in New York.
The talks here took place over strong objections from Israel, which says Arafat has done nothing to clamp down on a wave of suicide bombings, including the blast on Friday near a crowded Jerusalem marketplace.
The attacks prompted Powell to cancel talks with Arafat, scheduled for Saturday. But he agreed to Sunday’s meeting after Arafat condemned all forms of terrorism in an Arabic statement broadcast on Palestinian television on Friday.
The statement issued by Arafat and the Palestinian leadership denounced ”all terrorist actions which target civilians, Israeli or Palestinian, and terrorism, whether it be practiced by a state, groups or people”.
”We reject violence and terrorism perpetrated against civilians as a means of achieving political goals,” the text said.
State Department representative Richard Boucher told reporters the statement contained ”a number of interesting and positive elements”.
But US officials stressed they would be looking for concrete action from Arafat to stamp out the suicide bombings and not just words.
Erakat said the Palestinians were committed to fulfilling all their pledges but suggested they first need to see Israel roll back its 17-day-old military offensive on the West Bank.
”I believe that once the Israelis complete their withdrawal, we will, as Palestinians, carry out our obligations,” Erakat told reporters in Ramallah.- Sapa-AFP