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Powell Calls For Unconditional Cessation Of
Violence
WASHINGTON, May 21 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday called for an immediate "unconditional cessation of violence" between Israelis and Palestinians, and presented the Mitchell commission report as providing a solution to the crisis.
"We encourage the international community to join the United States in calling on the leaders to bring about in a very close instance an unconditional cessation of violence," Powell said.
Only then, Powell said, could the Israelis and Palestinians begin working on a series of confidence-building measures proposed by an international committee on the Middle East headed by former senator and Northern Ireland peace broker George Mitchell.
"The United States believes the committee has provided the parties with ideas that can help to find a solution to the terrible tragedy that has trapped the Israeli and Palestinian peoples in a continuing downward spiral of violence for the past eight months," Powell said.
He added that the United States was "prepared to work closely with the parties" on a framework and timeline to adopt the measures, but said he had no plans to meet with either Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon or Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat during his upcoming trip to Europe and Africa.
"At the moment I don't have any plans," he told reporters. "But things could change."
"The United States will remain engaged, the President [George W. Bush] will remain engaged, I will remain engaged," he added, after announcing that William Burns, the U.S. ambassador to Jordan, would be appointed a special envoy to the Middle East and would help set out a timeline to implement confidence-building measures listed in the report.
"We believe that both sides should give every consideration, the most serious consideration to the committee's recommendations," Powell said of the Mitchell report. "It is in that spirit that we endorse the report."
Powell said both Israelis and Palestinians should consider adopting the confidence-building measures outlined in the report to move toward a resumption of negotiations, which have collapsed under eight months of brutal bloodshed.
And during that time, he insisted, both sides "must avoid unilateral acts that prejudice the outcome of permanent status negotiations and that could be perceived by the other side as provocative."
Powell referred to the report's call for Palestinians "to make an all-out effort to enforce a complete cessation of violence," and its observations on the "negative impact of continued settlement activity on the prospects for peace."
The report called for an immediate freeze on Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories and more determined action against "terrorism" from the Palestinians.
"I hope both sides will now realize that this is unbearable and cannot continue without the whole region breaking out into an even more serious conflagration," he warned.
"But at the end of the day, it is not something that the United States can impose or the European Union can impose ... It is something that will require the leaders to be leaders and look beyond the passions of the moment ... and take the bold actions necessary to bring this cycle of violence to an end."
The Palestinian leadership welcomed Washington's decision to name William Burns as a special envoy to the Middle East.
"The Palestinian leadership welcomes the designation of an American mediator to help the sides apply the recommendations of the Mitchell commission," a Palestinian spokesman said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said that Israel accepted Powell's conclusions on the Mitchell report.
"I can say that we accept his conclusions," Peres told the U.S. television network CNN.
He also expressed satisfaction that Powell said, "there is no connection between the ceasefire and the settlements," even though both Powell and the Mitchell report mentioned the latter issue.
Newly appointed special envoy William J. Burns has dedicated most of his 20 years diplomatic service to Middle East issues.
Burns, 44, began his diplomatic career in Jordan in 1982 as a junior political officer and returned to Amman in 1998 to serve as the U.S. ambassador in the kingdom.
He was closely involved in Jordan's efforts, under the late King Hussein, to mediate between Israel and the Palestinians and took part in negotiations between them at Wye Plantation near Washington in October 1998.
Burns' career was bolstered with his recent nomination by Bush to head the Near East and North Africa bureau of the State Department.
"Active American engagement in the Middle East is a necessity, not an option," Burns told the Senate foreign relations committee on May 17th at his confirmation hearing.
"On Israeli-Palestinian issues, for example, it is absolutely clear that violence is a dead end for both peoples. It must be tackled head on with no equivocation or dissembling," Burns said last week.
"But a 100% effort to stop the violence will not be sufficient ... economic hope must be restored, confidence must be rebuilt, incitement must be eliminated," he stressed.
These guidelines echo the recommendations made by in the Mitchell report.
Burns' task now will be to help implement the Mitchell report to put an end to the violence, encourage confidence-building measures between Israel and the Palestinians and help both sides return to the negotiating table.
"I have instructed Ambassador to Jordan and Assistant Secretary-designate for Near Eastern affairs, William Burns, who is currently on his way back to Amman or in Amman, to join these efforts and make himself available to the parties," Powell said at the press conference in Washington.
"Ambassador Burns will be serving as a special assistant to me for this purpose," Powell said.
Powell said Burns will report directly to him and Bush "on what we can do to help bring these recommendations into effect and then set out the timeline for implementation of the confidence-building measures leading to the resumption of negotiations."
Tall, slim, with sleepy blue eyes and a bushy mustache, Burns is a soft-spoken diplomat who made humility his golden rule.
"A little humility goes a long way in employing American leadership and power," he said at his hearing confirmation last week, adding that the United States does not have a "monopoly in the Middle East."
Jordanian politicians and diplomats based in the kingdom have held him in high respect, describing Burns as pragmatic, sensible, serious and active on the Middle East scene.
"The closeness of ties between the American ambassador with the Jordanian king is a tradition, and contacts with Ambassador Burns and King Abdullah II are very warm," a source close to the Jordanian monarch said.
Burns holds a doctoral degree in international studies from Oxford University, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar.
He speaks fluent Arabic, Russian and French.
He is married to Lisa Carty, also a Foreign Service officer, and has two daughters.
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