Arafat Hails
U.S. Talks, Erakat Cynical, Palestinian Resistance Skeptical
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Shami: The visit aims to disunite the Palestinian society |
With
Additional Reporting By Yasser Al-Banna, IOL Palestine Correspondent
RAMALLAH,
West Bank, August 12 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Palestinian
President Yasser Arafat on Sunday, August 11, hailed as "very
positive" security talks in Washington between Palestinian
ministers and top U.S. officials, news agencies reported.
Arafat
said the Palestinian delegation, which has held three days of talks
with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Advisor
Condoleezza Rice and CIA director George Tenet, had conducted a
"very positive" visit. The delegation included the new
Palestinian Interior Minister, Abdel Razak El-Yehya.
Praising
the security talks, which were aimed at reforming his police and
militia services to allow them to take control of autonomous areas if
Israel pulls out, Arafat said he hoped to see concrete changes soon.
"The
talks were very positive and very important and there will be results
on the ground very soon," he told reporters.
The
United States, Egypt and Jordan are expected to oversee the reforms
and provide help in training and downsizing the cumbersome Palestinian
security forces, amid charges of corruption and complicity in
anti-Israeli attacks.
U.S.
daily newspaper, The Washington Post, said Sunday, August 11, that
El-Yehya spoke with Tenet about using the Jordanian model of having a
national police force that united police and security forces under one
command.
Up
to now, the Palestinian security forces have operated separately, with
their leaders playing political as well as security roles backed by
their own armed supporters, said the paper.
Tenet,
who with agency personnel has for many years played a middleman role
between Israeli and Palestinian security officials, said he would soon
receive a report from a CIA assessment team that recently visited the
area, said the Post.
According
to the paper, El-Yehya told Tenet that he would have difficulty moving
ahead with his reform of Palestinian police and security forces given
the chaos caused by Israeli occupation of the West Bank and its
continuing raids into Gaza, the sources said.
Israeli
daily newspaper, Ha’aretz, said Monday American officials have
indicated that Tenet believes conditions in the occupied territories
are not ripe yet for the implementation of a security plan.
Whereas
State Department officials believe that the time has come to move
ahead with PA reform plans, Tenet fears that if the plan is launched
before there is quiet on the ground, it is likely to fail, say U.S.
officials, reported the paper.
Meanwhile, another Israeli newspaper, The Jerusalem Post, quoted top
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat as saying that the Washington
talks did not achieve the hoped-for breakthrough in PA-U.S. relations.
According
to Erakat, Palestinian representatives agreed with their U.S.
counterparts that American specialists would be sent to the region to
train security forces that will serve in the unified security forces
to be established as part of PA reforms, reported the paper.
Yahya
is expected to meet with Arafat within the next 24 hours to brief him
on his talks with Tenet and other U.S. officials. Yahya, who was
appointed to the job by Arafat in June, was accompanied by two PA
ministers, Saeb Erekat and Minister for Economy and Trade Maher
al-Masri, said the Post.
The
Palestinian daily, Al-Ayyam, Sunday quoted Yahya as saying that the
talks were "constructive, serious, and fruitful." He
declined to elaborate, but said the two sides agreed to continue their
contacts in the near future.
Meanwhile,
members of the Palestinian resistance movements expressed their
concern regarding the Palestinian delegation’s visit to Washington.
Senior Hamas member, Dr. Mahmoud Al-Zahhar, said that the security
arrangements being done aim at increasing pressure on the Palestinian
resistance forces and decreasing pressure on Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon.
“What
are the Palestinian ministers in Washington doing besides putting
plans to get rid of the national and Islamic resistance?” he asked,
adding that the Palestinian Authority has accepted all proposals as
though it has any other option but to accept. This, he said, is a
danger to the Palestinian cause.
He
expressed his fear that the Palestinian Authority may place itself in
a confrontational position not only with resistance groups but also
with the Palestinian street who will not allow resistance activists to
be put in jails and detention centers.
Abdullah
Al-Shami, senior Islamic Jihad member, said that Palestinian
resistance forces are worried about the results of this visit which he
said “aims to disunite the Palestinian society.”
He
added that after failing to quell the Intifada against Israeli
occupation, Israel now aims to lay the burden on the shoulders of the
Palestinian Authority.
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