Work jointly, Sharon, Arafat told

By Kesava Menon

ANKARA (TURKEY), FEB. 25. The U.S. Secretary of State, Gen. Colin Powell, today met the Israeli Prime Minister-elect, Mr. Ariel Sharon, and the Palestinian Authority President Mr. Yasser Arafat, and tried to impress upon them that they should both try to contain the ongoing violence and that peace-making was primarily their responsibility.

In these respects, he was pushing the policy of the new U.S. administration that it would not be thrusting itself into the process in the manner the previous administration had done and that it did not consider that the pursuit of Israeli- Palestinian peace-making should be the primary objective of its West Asian policy. These policy postulates were put to the test at the outset of Gen. Powell's visit to the region.

Gen. Powell met Mr. Sharon on Sunday morning and with Mr. Arafat in the afternoon. At both meetings, he impressed upon both that they shared the responsibility to reduce the levels of violence. It did not appear that either of his interlocutors was willing to go along entirely with Gen. Powell's reading of the situation. Mr. Sharon told the Secretary of State that he would not initiate talks or try to ease the economic blockade of the Palestinian territories unless there was a complete end to violence. For his part, Mr. Arafat countered that it was the Israelis who were more violent and that he could do little to contain the violence when the Israelis denied him freedom of movement.

To an extent at least, Gen. Powell seemed to have understood the Palestinian predicament when he stressed that easing of the economic conditions of the Palestinians must come as a prelude to the ending of the violence and not the other way around. Mr. Sharon has been saying that he would try to ease the economic hardships if the Palestinians ended the violence.

However, Mr. Sharon's aides, and presumably he as well, are of the view that the economic blockade is necessary to make the Palestinians give up the violence. Gen. Powell did not agree with this logic and said that while a reduction of violence was necessary, it would not end and would in fact persist if the economic conditions of the Palestinians were not improved.

If the new U.S. administration is seeking to reverse the deep involvement in the peace-making process that the former administration displayed, the Palestinians are in no mood to oblige. At the press conference that he held with Gen. Powell, Mr. Arafat took pains to emphasise that the resolution of the conflict was not just in the interests of the two parties concerned but of the region and of the international community. Gen. Powell is likely to hear the same refrain from other Arab leaders as he tries to enlist their support for a revival of the hardline policy on Iraq and a push-back of the efforts on the Palestinian-Israeli front. Mr. Arafat also took pains to point out that it was the previous Republican administration of - and this he repeated several times - the current President's father who started the process with the Madrid talks. With this emphasis on the Madrid initiative, and no mention of the Oslo processes, Mr. Arafat appeared to have also dropped the references to the seven-year old processes. Not quite however. Mr. Arafat stressed that he wanted all the agreements that had been signed between his Authority and the Israelis to be implemented strictly.

Reuters reports:

An Israeli motorist was shot in the head in the West Bank today while Mr. Arafat was meeting Gen. Powell in nearby Ramallah, Jewish settlers said.

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Section  : International
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