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CNN Live Today

Secretary of State Wraps Up Talks With Israeli Leader

Aired April 16, 2002 - 11:01   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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Up first this hour on CNN here, a third Powell-Sharon meeting. The secretary of state has just wrapped up talks with the Israeli leader. CNN's Chris Burns is watching the secretary's search for peace. He joins us now from Jerusalem --hello, Chris.

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Leon -- good morning. Well, the meeting did wrap up just moments ago. No immediate word on the results of that. It lasted about one hour. It was the third meeting in these last few days that Secretary Powell has had with Ariel Sharon.

There is also a meeting tomorrow that Powell plans with Yasser Arafat. Will something come out of those meetings? Well, there is a very important meeting today between U.S. and Palestinian officials, trying to hammer out some kind of a joint statement condemning terrorist attacks and also looking ahead toward establishing a Palestinian state.

Now, will something come out of that? That is still yet to be seen. Will Powell leave the region tomorrow and on to Cairo with something in his pocket? That has yet to be seen. Powell saying in his words, "I think we are making progress, but the day is not done yet."

What is poisoning the situation, among other things, is the arrest yesterday of Marwan Barghouti, who is one of the chief aides of Yasser Arafat, the secretary-general of the Fatah movement of Arafat, whom the Israelis accuse of being behind the wave of suicide attacks that left more than 100 Israelis dead in March alone. That is poisoning the atmosphere; also the fact that the Israelis are still very much planted inside the West Bank. Sharon, however of course, telling CNN last night that he does plan on moving out within a week from the biggest city, Nablus, as well as from Jenin. However, the Israeli forces will remain in Bethlehem around the Church of the Nativity, where the Israelis would like to arrest Palestinian gunmen who are inside.

Also in Ramallah, where there is a chief suspect in the assassination of their tourist minister, they are remaining there in that city where, of course, Yasser Arafat is hunkered down in his bombed-out compound there. So that standoff also continues.

And the Israelis have continued to move in today. Overnight, they moved into the town of Tulkarem to arrest four more suspects and also clamp down a curfew on two -- at least two neighborhoods inside east Jerusalem, saying that they are trying to prevent another suicide bombing.

So tensions still remaining there on the ground. Will Powell leave the region by tomorrow with something in his pocket? We are still waiting and watching -- Leon.

HARRIS: Well, Chris, let me ask you about that situation in the Jenin refugee camp. We were trying to get someone on the phone who has actually been in there to come and talk with us and give us a first-hand account on what's going on in there. But have we gotten any closer to really identifying or figuring out exactly how many people may actually have been lost in that operation?

BURNS: Well, that's right, Leon. That's where the fiercest fighting was in recent days. The Palestinians accusing the Israelis of massacring people, of killing some 500 people in Jenin alone. The Israelis coming back and saying several dozen Palestinian gunmen died, as well as nearly two dozen Israeli soldiers in fierce fighting there.

What is the real story there? Well, we have some of our reporters who are going in on the ground there, as well as international aid groups going into to pick up some of the bodies. So far, no word of hundreds yet, but they are picking up scores of bodies. And an aid worker described this scene as being an earthquake zone the way it looks as intense the destruction was. So there could very well be many more bodies.

Amnesty International, by the way, is demanding an international and independent investigation of just what went on there. So that dispute will also, of course, poison the efforts towards reaching a cease-fire in the area, as well as trying to move toward regional peace talks. That of course all very much up in the air as Secretary Powell presses ahead with his efforts today and tomorrow -- Leon.

HARRIS: Chris Burns in Jerusalem -- thank you very much.

Now, as we said, we were trying to get someone on the phone. We do have him now. Joining us right now is Philip Winslow. He is with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. We talked with Mr. Winslow yesterday. He had tried to get in to that Jenin refugee camp, got his way somewhere just a few hundred meters in, but then he had to turn around and leave.

We understand, Mr. Winslow, that you were able to get in and go, I guess, get more extensively inside the camp?

PHILIP WINSLOW. U.N. RELIEF AND WORKS AGENCY: Yes, we were. Today was the day that we had our first access into the camp, and we were able to distribute two truck loads of food, approximately 20 tons of food, but just on the lower portions of the camp, before we ran out of time. And the access was then withdrawn as the camp is still under curfew.

HARRIS: About how many people will be helped by 20 tons of food? WINSLOW: Not many. This is just a rough guess. I would say 150 to 200 families. I don't know the size of the families, but I can tell you the way the distribution went, we drove through the shattered streets of this camp, and people, when they saw these trucks, they absolutely poured out of the houses, and they mobbed these trucks. People absolutely desperate for water and food.

HARRIS: Did you talk to these people? What did they tell you?

WINSLOW: Well, they -- first of all, they didn't have too much to say today. They had only one thing on their mind, and that was water, food and medical care. But the ones that were able talk to us about anything other than food said they have been in their houses for the two weeks of this siege and during the intense fighting. They have not been able to get out of their house during these ferocious battles.

HARRIS: Let me ask you to give us your description of what you saw. You just may have heard our Chris Burns say that he spoke with one aid worker, who said it looked to him like the aftermath of earthquake there. What were your impressions as you made your way further into this camp?

WINSLOW: It would be -- I would say that the description of earthquake, that is very accurate. The devastation, the destruction is absolutely immense. This refugee camp should now be considered a major international disaster zone. There is not a house -- these are all concrete block houses scattered out throughout this camp up the side of a hill. They are basically small cities in a way, these refugee camps. And the houses are destroyed, collapsed on top of each other, severe battle damage evident throughout the camp from tank rounds, helicopter missiles and the enormous bulldozers that the Israeli army uses to flatten houses. I mean, it really is staggering destruction.

HARRIS: Well, based upon what you have seen, have you been able to come, in your own mind, a conclusion about the numbers of people? You may have heard me ask about this earlier. We talked about this briefly yesterday. As you know, the Israelis are saying that the numbers of dead here, at least with the number of dead Palestinians numbers in the dozens. Palestinians say it numbers in the hundreds. They are saying upwards of 500 or so people have been lost here. Did you see anything that gives you a better idea of what may actually be the truth here?

WINSLOW: I still -- as I said yesterday, and this is still true today, we still cannot put any sort of numbers on casualties. We know there are still bodies buried in the rubble. We know some bodies have been removed from the camp, but I don't think anybody knows. We have only had access to about 20 percent or 25 percent of the area of the camp. So nobody can say with any degree of accuracy -- to talk with any degree of accuracy about casualty figures.

HARRIS: We should also note here that if there are casualties in that rubble that we are watching right now on the screens, Israeli forces and officials sources are telling us to remember that there were booby traps set up in these buildings and that it also could be the result of that sort of thing.

Philip Winslow, we thank you very much for your time once again. We understand you are very busy, and you have some important work to do. We'll let you get back to it. We hope to talk with you later on.

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