BEIRUT, June 12 (IslamOline & News Agencies) - U.S. President George W. Bush favors the creation of a "temporary state" for the Palestinians, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said in an interview published Wednesday, June 12, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

"The president did not give up his objective, but he knows that to reach his goal, a temporary Palestinian state as an interim phase and maybe other measures would be necessary," Powell told the Arabic-language Saudi daily, Al-Hayat, which is published in Beirut and other Arab capitals.

Such a formula, according to Powell, would "allow the Palestinians to achieve their hopes and dreams, and secure the confidence of the international community," Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

Powell said a temporary state needed to rely on "a democratic power, transparency without corruption and effective security agencies".

"This will help to develop the necessary confidence between the two parties [Palestinians and Israel] in order to push forward," Powell told Al-Hayat.

He declined to give a timetable for the move from what he described as a “temporary” state to a “full-fledged” Palestinian state.

On Tuesday, June 11, Powell said in Washington that Bush would announce steps to advance Middle East peace efforts "in the very near future" after talks later this week with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal.

He reiterated to Al-Hayat that the U.S. president's announcement would detail his vision for progress as well as ways of "transforming this vision into reality".

Powell stressed that Washington wanted to work with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, whom Israel is trying to isolate, unless the Palestinian people chose an alternative to their president.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the U.S. President in talks earlier this week that he opposed the creation of a Palestinian state because it would allegedly destabilize Israel, a senior Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Wednesday.

The official told reporters in London that Sharon had warned Bush that "under the present conditions, support for a Palestinian state would provoke the collapse" of his government.

Sharon was stopping over in London, where he was to have talks later in the day with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, on his return from Washington.