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Powell Begins Mideast Tour Unrepentant About Air Strikes On Iraq
WASHINGTON & CAIRO, Feb 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell spent Saturday in Egypt on the first leg of a Middle East tour, unrepentant about air strikes on Iraq despite heavy Arab criticism, upbeat about bridging differences with Russia and confident Israel and the Palestinians will resume peace talks.
Given the pace of Powell's whirlwind three-day tour, it is a trip not geared to settling tough problems in the region, but will focus on attempting to shore up support for containing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and secondarily assessing prospects for the sickly Israeli-Palestinian peace track.
He arrived in Cairo saying he was determined to build a regional consensus on re-energizing U.N. sanctions, which U.S. President George W. Bush has compared to "Swiss cheese," against Baghdad and finding a "better way" to contain Iraq.
While saying he intended to listen to Arab concerns and calls for an easing of sanctions on Iraq, Powell said he would continue to hold open the option of military force against Saddam and was open to advice on how to force Iraq to abandon its weapons programs.
"In some places [there was] quite a bit of criticism over the fact that we did that," he said, referring to the February 16th strikes on Baghdad. "To the extent that that makes my job and my work a little more difficult, well, so be it."
But, he said, the bombing makes the point that "we will not allow the negotiating track, or whatever we are doing with respect to the sanctions, overcome what we are prepared to do militarily."
Saddam "threatens not the United States, he threatens this region, he threatens Arab people, he threatens the children of Egypt, the children of Saudi Arabia, the children of Kuwait with these weapons," Powell said later at a joint news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.
"He has used them before so I think we all have a solemn obligation to keep him in check," Powell said.
But Powell's message did not seem to be immediately convincing, as a coalition of Palestinian groups called for a four-hour business strike Sunday to protest his visit.
Bush's administration has "started its work by bombing Iraq and turning its back on Palestinian rights. It's a totally biased policy in favor of Israel," said Marwan Barghouti, the West Bank leader of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction.
Hundreds of angry demonstrators took to the streets of the West Bank and Amman, where Powell was denounced as a "war criminal" for the strikes on Baghdad and alleged U.S. support for Israel's crackdown on the nearly five-month-old Palestinian uprising.
Most Arab countries have made it clear that they believe U.N. sanctions on Iraq should be scrapped.
In Syria, the official daily Tishrin accused the Bush administration of looking to replace discussion of the Arab-Israeli conflict "with Iraq, while the true and unique danger comes from Israel, which thumbs its nose at international law."
In Baghdad, the official Al-Qadissiya newspaper said the U.S. hard line on Iraq faces growing isolation on the international scene.
It said Friday's summit between Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair showed "the growing isolation of U.S. policy, which its British acolyte and accomplice in aggression is trying to break."
Additionally, saying the goal of Powell's trip was to tighten U.N. sanctions on their country, some 100 Iraqi legislators protested, chanting "Down, down USA" and "Powell's trip is a trip of shame, opposed by all free Arabs."
Some commentators in key regional allies of the United States said Powell was likely to hear one message from Arab capitals he visits: Washington should focus on promoting Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking rather than risk inflaming the area with more tension.
Commenting on the Iraqi focus of Powell's visit, the United Arab Emirates' Arabic-language al-Bayan daily said in an editorial, "It is a visit that can be useful in calming the situation whether in the occupied [Palestinian] territories or in Iraq, or it can inflame the situation."
But Powell's concerns on the first day of his Middle East trip turned for an afternoon to Moscow, as he held his first face-to-face meeting with his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov.
The two smiled broadly and joked together after a 90-minute meeting in the neutral venue of a Cairo hotel, but it was clear deep differences remained on issues such as missile defense, arms sales and Iraq.
"We certainly exchanged views on how to pursue our dialogue to look forward together for points of coinciding interests on how to work together further in the interests of international security," he said.
Russia has led opposition to Bush administration plans to build a missile shield, which Moscow fears could upset the global strategic balance and spark a new arms race.
After his meeting with Ivanov, Powell entered talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whose country, a key regional ally of the United States, has denounced the strikes on Baghdad and recently signed a free trade accord with Iraq.
Powell then moves on to Israel, where he is expected to see outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak late Saturday and the Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon the following morning.
The hawkish Sharon, who is still working to form a coalition government, has called on Washington's alliance with Israel to focus less on the peace process and is content the Bush administration has distanced itself from a series of peace compromises by former president Bill Clinton that would have included some Palestinian sovereignty over Jerusalem, anathema to right-wing Israelis.
After Jerusalem, Powell will meet in Ramallah with Arafat, who arrived in the West Bank town Saturday for the first time since the Palestinian uprising broke out in September.
A U.S. embassy spokesman in Tel Aviv said the change was made "just as a matter of convenience" and that security concerns were not involved.
Powell said he was confident Israel and the Palestinians would return to the peace table, but declined to predict when talks might resume or what form they might take.
"There will be a negotiation again; there is no choice," he told reporters.
Powell then travels on to Jordan for talks with King Abdullah, to Kuwait for a ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of the end of the Gulf War, to Damascus for talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and to Riyadh for discussions with Saudi officials.
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