23 October 2001
Excerpt: Powell Urges Israelis, Palestinians to Reduce Violence
(Comments on plane returning to the U.S. from APEC meeting) (870)
Secretary of State Colin Powell said he encouraged Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon to show restraint when sending Israeli forces
into Palestinian areas to make arrests.
Powell said he also urged Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to make
maximum efforts to capture the people responsible for the recent
assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi and bring down
the level of violence.
Powell commented about recent developments in the Middle East while
speaking to reporters aboard his plane while traveling back to the
United States from Shanghai, China, October 22 from a meeting of the
Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
Following is an excerpt of Powell's comments about the Middle East
from the transcript of his in-flight press conference:
(begin excerpt)
QUESTION: Following up in India and Pakistan, that group of I's and
P's, you have another group of I's and P's that are at each other's
throats now. The tensions rose quite significantly, during your time
away next week in both places. How do you see that calming down, if
you do, and what's the effect of that on the coalition?
SECRETARY POWELL: You know, this was not a good week in the Middle
East. It started out as a promising week. The first day was the most
promising day I had seen in many months with the Israelis opening up
some crossing sites, pulling back their forces from Hebron or a number
of other places. You may recall Mr. Sharon, also that same day, once
again, indicated in due course the existence of a Palestinian state.
We had security meetings going on (inaudible) getting better.
So for the first time in a long time, I was seeing some progress
toward the Mitchell plan and I was very encouraged. But the very next
day, we had a terrorist attack, killed a minister who had just left
government. He would have been out of the government in another hour
and he left the government because Mr. Sharon had been asking actions
that were starting to move in a direction of trying to get the process
going. So it could not have been a more tragic incident as a personal
matter of course for the minister and his family, but for the region.
So, as a result, we had a deterioration all week long with the
Israelis feeling the need to go back into a number of these Zone A
cities and towns and making demands on the Palestinians with respect
to arresting the perpetrators. Mr. Arafat is trying to find the
perpetrators.
New demands have been placed on the table. I spent most of yesterday
working on this. I spoke to Prime Minister Sharon. I spoke to Mr.
Arafat, Foreign Minister Maher, King Abdullah, Igor Ivan, of course,
maybe a couple of others that Richard can get to you. And trying to
see, not forget where we have been a week before.
Mr. Sharon had indicated he felt it absolutely necessary to go in and
arrest those who are planning terror and he did not want to remain in
those zones and would be coming out as soon as he could. I encouraged
him to exercise all the restraint that he could because we have to
think about the day after. I also encouraged Chairman Arafat to do all
he could in order to arrest those who are responsible for this latest
act of terror and to continue to do all that he could to reduce the
violence to hopefully zero, the lowest level possible. So it was not a
great four days. So far today, there's been violence but it hasn't
been as bad as yesterday. We will see where we are tomorrow. It's a
day-by-day thing, I regret to say.
QUESTION: Did the Palestinian party just outlaw the armed group of the
PFLP?
SECRETARY POWELL: I heard they were getting ready to do that, and I
think that is a good move. I think the (inaudible) have given
instructions to his various organizations to implement a cease-fire.
If they don't follow his instructions and violate that, it's a
challenge to his authority. I'm glad to see that he's responding to
that challenge.
QUESTION: (inaudible)
SECRETARY POWELL: I would hope that both sides would make whatever
reciprocal moves they can in order to reduce tension. As I said a
moment ago, Mr. Sharon said he does not want to stay into these
occupied areas, so as the violence is ended in those areas, in the
Zone A areas he went into(inaudible). As soon as the violence has gone
down and he has done whatever arresting he planned to do, he wants to
come back out. He also gave me his assurance that he is still
committed to the Mitchell committee process. I look forward to my
conversations with Foreign Minister Peres. I can't give you a specific
yes, if they do that, they should do that. I can just give you a
general, I hope both sides will look for every opportunity to go back
down the ladder of escalation and try to do everything they can to
reduce tensions.
(end excerpt)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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