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CNN Live Today

Vice President Calls for Peace Talks in Israel

Aired March 19, 2002 - 13:18   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: For more on what's happening on the ground there, as whether or not results are being felt, let's get to Turkey right now, capital city of Ankara -- and CNN senior White House correspondent John King, travelling with Dick Cheney, joins us now by way videophone, where there is movement yet again today.

John, good evening again to you.

JOHN KING, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good evening to you, Bill, from Ankara.

Vice President Cheney here for conversations with Turkish officials, his focus now back on a potential confrontation with Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

But you are right: a dramatic day of developments. Earlier, Mr. Cheney was in Jerusalem, a significant shift in the administration's strategy over the past several days, the return of Gen. Zinni to the region, as an envoy to the president, even though the president had previously insisted that no return of the special envoy until the violence had stopped; instead, he sent Gen. Zinni back in the middle of the worst violence in years.

And the administration dropping today, Mr. Cheney making the announcement in Jerusalem, its insistence that it would not even consider a meeting with Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, unless and until Mr. Arafat made what the administration saw as a 100 percent effort to end the violence.

All this done in an effort to bring about a truce. Eighteen months of violence have killed some 1,300 people, the United States putting pressure on Israel, on the one hand, and in the past 24 hours, an Israeli pullout from five areas it had occupied in the Palestinian territories over the past two weeks. And then this morning, Prime Minister Sharon, at the vice president's side, saying he would allow Mr. Arafat to travel outside of the Palestinian territory, go to Beirut for next week's Arab summit if -- and this is a big "if" -- both the travel restrictions being lifted and for the Cheney meeting -- if Mr. Arafat signs on to truce and that enters into negotiations ultimately aimed at reaching a formal cease-fire.

So the administration changed its strategy. White House officials say they had to do something to end the bloodshed. They are defending all these moves, and even as they look for progress in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, they are hoping there is ripple effect, that now the vice president and the president can check back with Arab leaders who, when Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney want to talk about Saddam Hussein, want to change the subject to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the administration now hoping it makes it an easier sale or at least quiets the outright opposition of many of those Arab leaders to a tougher U.S. policy toward Iraq -- Bill.

HEMMER: John, what does it say about the White House involvement right now when Dick Cheney says if certain conditions are met on the ground by those sides -- and specifically Yasser Arafat at this point -- that he will turn tail and head right back to the Middle East?

KING: Consider the change, Bill. This is administration which resists notion, rejects the notion, but has been accused of taking a dramatic step back from the Clinton administration in refusing to have day-to-day, hands-on activity in trying to broker a cease-fire agreement, and, ultimately, peace in the Middle East. Now you have Gen. Zinni in the region, you have the vice president in Israel. And standing next to Prime Minister Sharon, promising to meet with meet with Mr. Arafat, and now he might return as early as next week.

You cannot make the case now that this administration is not engaged. And there is a risk that comes with that; as we learned in the Clinton administration, now if things go wrong -- and in the Middle East, they often do -- the administration will share some of the blame as well.

HEMMER: John, thanks. John King -- it is nightfall in Ankara -- traveling with the vice president there, live in central Turkey. John, thanks to you.

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