Settlement activity is simply inconsistent with President Bush's two-state vision: Powell

WASHINGTON, March 31 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Despite the latest resistance operation in Israel and amid mounting Arab anger over the war in Iraq, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday, March 30, that the Americans "have reached a hopeful moment" for the stalled Middle East peace process, warning Syria from helping Iraq in its resistance against the U.S.-led invasion.

"Today we have reached a hopeful moment, when progress may again be possible," the top U.S. diplomat said, addressing a meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, an influential lobbying group, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The note of optimism came despite a new resistance operation in Israel that claimed the life of the assailant and left 26 people injured, and the broadening U.S.-British military attack on Iraq, which has drawn widespread condemnation in the Arab world. 

Powell denounced the bombing, calling it "a cowardly act."

But he also took heart in the recent election of Mahmud Abbas, a moderate Palestinian politician, to the newly-created post of prime minister, which is designed as a counterweight to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, seen by the United States and Israel as an “obstacle” to peace.

He warned that the administration of President George W. Bush would be watching "very carefully" how the new prime minister exercises his authority, "which is so important for Palestinian hopes for better future."

Threatening Syria

Powell singled out Syria, saying it must choose between supporting “terrorist groups” and the doomed Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein, and cooperation.

"Either way Syrian bears the responsibility for its choices and for the consequences," he said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed last week that Syria is  delivering military supplies to the beleaguered Iraqi military battling U.S. troops.

Relations between Syria and the United States are at their worst for 20 years in the wake of the U.S.-led war on Iraq, and nothing indicates they will improve.

The last time they were so low was during the Lebanese civil war, in which both countries intervened. Syria ended up dominating Lebanon, while U.S. forces pulled out after a devastating resistance operation carried out by Syrian protégés, the Islamic resistance movement, Hezbollah.

Syria, the only Arab country currently on the UN Security Council, fought Washington's insistence to launch a war on Iraq, and made clear its bitterness when it failed.

Tensions between the two burst into the open last week, when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he hoped U.S. forces would fail to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and Rumsfeld accused Damascus of sending military supplies to Iraq in a "hostile act."

Assad also predicted that, if the United States and Britain were to take over Iraq, they would be confronted by a "popular resistance" that would prevent them from controlling the country.

The same day, Syrian mufti Sheikh Ahmad Kaftaro called for carrying out resistance operations against U.S. forces, a wish which came true on Saturday, March 29, with a blast that killed four U.S. troops near Najaf, south of Baghdad.

Rumsfeld, who also hit out at Iran, claimed in a press briefing, "We have information of shipments of military supplies crossing the border from Syria into Iraq."

The deliveries, which included night vision goggles, "pose a direct threat to the lives of coalition forces," he said. "We consider such trafficking as hostile acts and will hold the Syrian government accountable for such shipments."

He declined to say whether the Syrian government was behind the shipments, but stressed: "They control their border. We're hopeful that kind of thing does not happen again.

"There is no question but that to the extent military supplies, equipment or people move across borders between Iraq and Syria that it vastly complicates our situation," he said.  Syria hit back later Friday, ridiculing the charges.

"Donald Rumsfeld is trying to justify the failure experienced by his troops in Iraq as the result of weather conditions and others by accusing other parties of having passed military equipment to Iraq," a foreign ministry spokesman told the official Sana news agency.

But on Sunday Al-Jazeera television reported that an unknown number of Syrians had arrived in Iraq's northern city of Mosul to fight for Saddam.

They had crossed into Iraq by unknown routes but without passing through established border posts, Al-Jazeera said, showing pictures of them brandishing weapons and portraits of Saddam.

Relations were already fraught since March 12, when Powell accused Syria of developing weapons of mass destruction and called its military presence in Lebanon an "occupation."

However, analysts in Beirut were skeptical about Rumsfeld's accusations.

"Delivering weapons to Iraq would be a blunder which Syria would never commit, knowing that it is in Washington's sights and would be giving a golden excuse for the Americans to punish it," a Lebanese politician with close ties with Damascus said.

While Syria would feel more vulnerable with a U.S.-occupied Iraq next door and hampering its contacts with its ally Iran, its relations with its northern neighbor Turkey were excellent so it did not fear encirclement, he added.

A western diplomat, who also expressed skepticism at Rumsfeld's allegations, said that Syria could be relatively unworried for the time being, especially as its attitude was shared by Arab public opinion.

Although Syria is not included in U.S. President George W. Bush's "axis of evil", which groups Iran, Iraq and North Korea, it is still on the State Department's list of countries “supporting terrorism” and fears that it may be next on the U.S. list after Iraq.

‘Unveiling The Roadmap’

Powell reiterated the U.S. promise to unveil a roadmap for peace, a broad plan for achieving a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East put together in cooperation with the United Nations, the European Union and Russia, as soon as Abbas and his cabinet are confirmed.

The roadmap calls for the creation of a viable Palestinian state by 2005 through a series of step enhancing Israel's independence and Palestinian sovereignty.

But Powell stressed the need for genuine good will from both Israelis and Palestinians to save the roadmap from sharing the fate of previous regional peace initiatives.

"Israel and the Palestinians must walk the road of peace together, if either is to arrive at the desired destination," he stated.

He pointed out that "Palestinian violence" was incompatible with President George W. Bush's "vision" of regional peace, arguing that "terror must end."

Israel, for its part, must help revive the economy of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and "diminish the daily humiliation of life under occupation," he said.

"Settlement activity is simply inconsistent with President Bush's two-state vision," he added.