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CNN Live Today

Sharon to Keep Initiative

Aired April 08, 2002 - 13:05   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to go now to CNN's Jerrold Kessel who has this report from Jerusalem with all the news of the day.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Less a defiant Israeli prime minister more Ariel Sharon declaring he has the initiative and he wants to keep it, means to keep it first and foremost by allowing the Israel army to complete its declared anti-terror campaign despite U.S. demands that it wind up without delay.

UNIDENTIFIED: The idea that it will continue with operation as quickly as possible until the mission is completed, until Arafat's terror structure is disassembled and until the killers hiding in various places like in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem are captured.

KESSEL: That week-long stand-off in one of the Christian worlds holiest sites punctuated by a fire set off by exchange of bullets between the besieging Israel troops and the sieged Palestinian gunmen, only one of the places where the Israel army continues its offensive.

UNIDENTIFIED: Mr. Sharon's resolve as to what will come immediately after the mission against terror is over is set to test U.S. resolve.

UNIDENTIFIED: Our forces will remobilize in other regions in order to serve as a buffer between the Palestinian territory and our territory. In order to prevent any infiltrations into Israeli territory and terror attacks to Israel civilians.

KESSEL: With Mr. Sharon labeling Yasser Arafat the leader of regime of terror, he implied there could no longer be any dealing with Mr. Arafat's Palestinian authority, therefore, no hope of achieving the U.S. goal of a cease-fire.

It's the occupation that's the problem. The prime minister was heckled repeatedly by Arab members of parliament. Palestinians accused the Israel leader of killing off the Powell mission even before it's begun.

UNIDENTIFIED: To those who believed for a moment and closed eyes their eyes to the reality and believed that Sharon was approaching what he called terror, I think it's obvious today that the man's end game all along the way was to dismantle the Palestinian authority, to dismantle the peace process, to resume occupation.

KESSEL: And Palestinians say that Sharon is finally unmasking his real intentions. The prime minister says that Mr. Powell should look beyond the Palestinian authority for resolution of the Arab- Israel conflict saying he had found positive elements in the Saudi peace initiative.

UNIDENTIFIED: I intend to discuss within the ways to lead to the stopping of terror and to push ahead the initiative we are presenting here for our meeting with leaders of the region in order to restart a process of discussing peace in Middle East.

KESSEL: As Mr. Sharon lays down the contours, he envisages for Israel's future relations with Palestinians in West Bank, his foreign minister choice to highlight the other urgent imperative in Israel policy making.

UNIDENTIFIED: The sooner the better to try to make a supreme effort not to create a collision course with the United States.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KESSEL: And in the wake of this half-blazing address by Sharon in the Knesset today, a big unanswered question, is there enough perhaps is there anything in the vision, which he outlined today, on which the United States can build, on which the United States may want to build.

But even before that, clearly, the United States has its eyes fixed elsewhere with the Special U.S. Envoy, General Zinni, sent to Mr. Sharon by President Bush this evening and telling him again underlining that message that has come time and again over the last 48 hours from the United States to Ariel Sharon, you must move your troops out without delay right way. For now the prime minister stands pat -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, Jerrold Kessel live from Jerusalem, thank you. And we'll be keeping an eye on the Middle East situation throughout the day.

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