Bush to Meet
FMs of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia
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Bush
will hold talks this week with the foreign ministers of Saudi
Arabia, Egypt and Jordan ahead of an Aug. 1 meeting with
Jordan’s King Abdullah.
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WASHINGTON,
July 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – U.S. President George W.
Bush meets Thursday, July 18, with the foreign ministers of key Arab
allies Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia in the hopes of securing their
support for the U.S. version of the reform of Palestinian
institutions, which he sees as a precondition for the creation of a
Palestinian state.
The
Middle East “quartet,” made up of the United States, United
Nations, European Union and Russia met Tuesday, July 16, and said they
wanted to send a CIA-led team of intelligence experts to supervise
Palestinian security reforms.
The
proposed mission would include Egyptian,
Jordanian and Saudi intelligence experts, Agence France-Presse (AFP)
reported.
The
talks come in the wake of new resistance attacks in Israel, which
claimed the lives of at least ten people and left 40 others wounded.
“Peace
cannot be built on a platform of violence against innocents,” the
U.S. president said in a statement late Wednesday, July 17, as he
expressed condolences to the victim’s families.
Bush
added that there was now “broad international consensus, as
evidenced by the meetings this week in Washington and New York, on the
need to support Palestinian reform, address the urgent humanitarian
needs of the Palestinian people and restore momentum toward a
two-state solution.”
U.S.
Secretary of State Colin Powell’s talks in New York with the
diplomatic “quartet” on the Middle East, the European Union,
Russia and the United Nations, had produced “positive” and
“interesting” developments, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer
said earlier Wednesday.
The
“quartet” members found common ground in endorsing Bush’s call
for a Palestinian state within three years, which was welcomed as
“encouraging and balanced” by the Palestinian Authority.
Other
U.S. officials played down differences with U.S. partners in the
“quartet,” but acknowledged that Washington stood alone on its
anti-Palestinian President Yasser Arafat stance.
“We
all agree we need practical steps to create the institutions, to
create the divisions of government, the responsibilities, the
accountability that will give the humanitarian support, that will give
the Palestinians the kind of leadership they need and want and that
will give them the prospect of a state,” said State Department
spokesman Richard Boucher, who attended the meeting with Powell on
Tuesday.
But
U.N. chief Kofi Annan, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Danish
Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller, representing the European Union,
all backed Arafat despite Bush’s call for his ouster and U.S. moves
to marginalize him.
“We
quite clearly disagree on what to expect from Chairman Arafat and how
we deal with him, whether we do or we don’t,” Boucher said.
The
sharp disagreements that emerged over the role Arafat should play in
any future Palestinian government and the pace of the Israeli response
to Palestinian reform, were glossed over by the White House, AFP
reported.
At
a press conference Bush sidestepped a question as to whether he
supported a largely-ceremonial role advocated by Powell in remarks to
reporters following the quartet meeting at New York’s
Waldorf-Astoria hotel.
“I
know the Palestinian people will be better served by new leadership.
When you analyze his record, he has failed the Palestinian people. He
just has, and that’s reality,” Bush said.
Arafat
dismissed Bush’s calls for his ouster and announced for the first
time Wednesday that he intended to run in the January elections.
Bush,
who in a policy speech in June called on the Palestinians to vote out
a leadership that was “compromised by terror,” said it was crucial
to remember that the issue was “much bigger than a single person.”
Meanwhile
in Gaza, leaders of the
Islamic resistance group Hamas on Wednesday expressed concern
at a proposal for the United States to coordinate Palestinian security
reforms with Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
“Of
course there are legitimate fears for the Palestinian resistance from
any new action, especially when we are aware of the U.S.
administration’s aims and we hope this action with the United
Nations will not be against the resistance,” said the Hamas chief
for Gaza, Abdelaziz Al-Rantissi.
Sheikh
Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, told AFP his movement,
was in touch with Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority to discuss
the mounting U.S. pressure for reform.
“We
are in dialogue with the Palestinian Authority, and the main point of
the dialogue is that the Palestinian nation faces Israeli aggression
and U.S. pressure, we are focusing on how to get out of this difficult
situation without damaging the Palestinian interest,” he said.
Yassin
said that while reforms were needed, much of Arafat’s program, urged
by the United States and Israel as well as by the Palestinian people,
was aimed more at safeguarding Israel without ending the Israeli
occupation.
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