Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

Powell to Meet with Arafat Again Before Leaving Region

Aired April 16, 2002 - 13:06   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: Back to Secretary Powell now. We do know tomorrow he will leave the region after he meets with Yasser Arafat. From there he will head on to Egypt before returning back to the U.S.

But for more now on this statement of progress, let's get to Andrea Koppel once again live with us tonight this evening here in Jerusalem -- Andrea.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Bill.

Well as one senior administration official told me, talks haven't broken down but it's not looking good either. Right now all eyes are focused on what will come out of tomorrow's meeting with Yasser Arafat. Secretary Powell plans to travel for the second time to the besieged headquarters of Yasser Arafat in Ramallah.

What is the Secretary of State looking to get from Yasser Arafat? Well he's looking for that unequivocal statement of condemnation of terrorism, a commitment to a cease-fire and also really telling his people explicitly in Arabic that suicide bombings are wrong. That's something that we of as yet to hear from the Palestinian leader.

As one official told me, he said hopes and expectations are pinned on the Arafat meeting tomorrow. He said all will become clear after that meeting. But another official said don't expect a lot to come out of the meeting.

The U.S. aides to Secretary Powell have been meeting with Palestinian aides to Yasser Arafat over the last couple of days, Bill, and they are not making much headway. And the main reason for that, they say, is that the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has not committed to a firm timeline to withdraw from all of the West Bank towns and cities. Remember he said to Wolf Blitzer last night in that interview that they would withdraw -- the Israeli military would withdraw within a week from most towns and cities but not from Ramallah or Bethlehem.

Ramallah, of course, where Yasser Arafat is. The Israelis say that they're holding a number of terrorists there. They want them -- they want Yasser Arafat to turn those terrorists over before they lift the siege. And in Bethlehem, there's that standoff at the Church of the Nativity, which you were just talking about there. So it is not looking terribly promising at this point. Bill, remember Secretary Powell began his trip nine days ago, hopes were not high then. Nobody expected a breakthrough, but they were hoping for enough progress that they could prevent this situation from spiraling out of control any further.

Having said that, he came hoping to get a cease-fire, hoping to get a commitment from Ariel Sharon to completely withdraw from the territories and hoping to get that statement of condemnation from Yasser Arafat, something that would satisfy Israeli demands. And he has come up, at least as of this hour, Bill, short on every one of those. But the story isn't over yet. Tomorrow he has that meeting with Yasser Arafat, and we'll just have to see what comes out of that.

HEMMER: Yes, Andrea, quickly here, that one of the headlines from yesterday was the possibility of this regional conference that Israel said would not include Yasser Arafat. So in turn there was talk of a solution to include the ministerial level, perhaps all the foreign ministers of a number of countries in the region, including the U.S. Any indication that the Palestinians after they rejected it initially that they might accept that?

KOPPEL: No indication yet. In fact, most of the energy of U.S. officials in their conversations with the Palestinian side has really been focused on trying to get an acceptable statement from Yasser Arafat on terrorism and a commitment to a cease-fire. While that international or at least that regional Middle East conference is something that the U.S. views as being important, it isn't something they feel they need to -- they need to get a commitment to, a hard commitment to at this particular moment. That's not really a deal breaker.

But certainly when Secretary Powell travels to Cairo tomorrow that is going to be at the top of his agenda. He'll be briefing Egyptian officials, but he will also be talking with them about possibly even sponsoring such a Middle Eastern conference so that they can kind of follow up on that Saudi peace initiative that was -- that was approved by much of the Arab world last month -- Bill.

HEMMER: All right. Andrea, thanks.

Andrea Koppel reporting along with the Secretary of State here from Jerusalem tonight.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com