Clinton Working Full Time on Finding a Way to End Middle East Violence
Clears schedule of all else, press secretary says
By Wendy S. Ross
Washington File White House Correspondent
Washington -- President Clinton is working full time to find ways to
defuse the volatile situation in the Middle East, White House Press
Secretary Jake Siewert told reporters October 13.
"We're engaged in diplomacy right now... We're working every minute
that we can on defusing the tension," Siewert said, saying that
Clinton had cleared his schedule of everything else.
Clinton is "burning up the phone lines" talking with leaders in the
region, Siewert said. Among the leaders Clinton has spoken with are
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdallah, Morocco's King Mohamed VI,
Jordan's King Abdallah II, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak,
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israel's Prime
Minister Barak, and he was expected to talk with U.N. Secretary
General Kofi Annan later in the day.
Asked about the proposal by Egypt's President to host a summit in
Egypt, Siewert said "we think such a meeting is one option to move the
process forward and deescalate violence."
"It's something that we've been working with the Egyptians and the
King of Jordan over the last day or so and we will continue on that to
see if that or some other option might be a way to defuse tension and
keep the violence from escalating," Siewert said.
But he said "so far the conditions haven't yet come together that
would make such a meeting useful."
"We would only go to such a meeting if we thought it had a reasonable
chance of being productive."
Siewert said, however, that the United States does not want to set any
preconditions for a summit.
"There may be some utility to meeting in the region and trying to find
a way to reduce the overall level of tension," he said, adding that
"public declarations to renounce violence would be helpful, given the
level of violence we've seen over the last two weeks."
Clinton was to meet in the late afternoon October 13 with his national
security team, which includes National Security Adviser Sandy Berger,
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Defense Secretary William Cohen
and Vice President Al Gore.
He will review both the latest in the Mideast and "what we know about
the U.S.S. Cole," Siewert said.
The October 12 explosion on the U.S. navy destroyer Cole, killed as
many as 17 U.S. sailors -- seven are confirmed dead, and ten others
still missing and presumed dead -- and injured many others.
Plans are underway, he said, for Clinton to attend a memorial service
for the sailors of the Cole.
The United States, he said, is "operating under the assumption that
this was a terrorist act." Investigators are in the region looking
exactly at that issue and trying to determine who's responsible, he
said.
The Pentagon and The Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating
the explosion, and the White House is "playing a role coordinating
that as we always do when more than one agency is involved," Siewert
said.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters that the
explosion "very much appears to be a deliberate act."
He told reporters that the State Department had sent messages to its
embassies worldwide urging personnel "to be careful, to be vigilant."
As a precautionary measure the State Department has closed 37 of its
posts to public business until Monday, October 16, State Department
spokesman Philip Reeker said. They include all posts in the Middle
East, the Persian Gulf region and North Africa as well those in
Nigeria, Tanzania, Senegal, Mauritania, Djibouti, South Africa, Kenya,
Pakistan and Sierra Leone.
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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