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CNN Live Today

Bush to Talk Middle East at G8

Aired June 25, 2002 - 10:08   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: As we said earlier, President Bush is on his way to a summit of world leaders in Canada, but he is going a little out of the way to get there. He is going to be making a brief stop in Arizona to view the fire, and the firefighting efforts before going on to Canada.

Our Kelly Wallace is at the White House this morning. Hi, Kelly.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Leon. President Bush was originally scheduled to leave later this afternoon for Canada, but the severity of that situation in Arizona prompted White House aides to quickly rearrange the president's schedule, and add a trip to Arizona to his itinerary.

As we know, the president left bright and early this morning. He will visit Arizona, meet with, again, some firefighters and some of the families affected. This, we believe, is Mr. Bush's first visit as president to a natural disaster area.

After that, he heads to Canada, near Calgary, for the summit of the most industrialized nations plus Russia, also known as the G8 summit. And there, the president will definitely spend a great deal of time briefing world leaders about his new Middle East peace plan, the one he unveiled in the Rose Garden yesterday afternoon. The president saying the U.S. would support the creation of a Palestinian state within three years, but only if there are reforms of the Palestinian leadership.

In particular, the president never mentioning Yasser Arafat by name, but making it clear he believes that Mr. Arafat must go. The president saying that peace requires -- quote -- "new and different" Palestinian leadership. And in the sign of how difficult that is going to be, Yasser Arafat, in his first public comments, since President Bush's speech yesterday, he says -- quote -- "the Palestinian people should be the one to determine who their leaders will be."

Now, the president also calling for the Israelis to take steps, including withdrawing from some recently reoccupied Palestinian lands, but really only after the security situation improves a bit.

And Leon, the message from senior administration officials today is that the president laid out what they say is a plan to move the parties out of the violence and away from the violence, and now the president is calling on the Israelis, the Palestinians, and the Arab leaders, to -- quote -- "heed his call" -- Leon.

HARRIS: All right. Kelly Wallace at the White House. Thank you very much. Since you have introduced that, let's go right now to the Middle East and get the view from there on all this. Our Jerrold Kessel is standing by in Jerusalem. He has got the latest from there -- hello, Jerrold.

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Leon. Well, interesting moment as Kelly was saying there, with a focus on the president's vision being there must be a change in the Palestinian leadership, and if that means that Yasser Arafat's future, as -- or at least part in a projected peaceful future of Israeli-Palestinian, Israeli-Arab relations is in doubt, well, the Palestinian leader had an interesting way of handling that.

He was meeting today with the visiting French foreign minister, and afterwards, he almost entirely sidestepped, or he did refer, as Kelly was saying there, to the idea that only the Palestinian people can elect their leaders, but he almost sidestepped the idea of him being the focal point, perhaps taking up on the fact that Mr. Bush, President Bush, never mentioned him by name at all. Mr. Arafat saying he didn't think he was referring to him personally and his future, and he said, taking a positive look at the elements in the Bush vision as outlined by the president yesterday, saying there are some very interesting elements in it.

And indeed, other Palestinian leaders, while rebuking the president for trying, in effect, to change their leader or to dump their leader, were fixing on the ideology or the vision down the line. Of a Palestinian state, of the end to the occupation. The main thing they were saying was the problematics they saw, that there is no road map in getting to that position other than dumping the Palestinian leadership, and that, they indicate, is simply not on.

So what the Palestinians are saying is there should still be pressure on the Israeli side. But for that, it doesn't seem to be anywhere, anyone reading that into the Bush speech from yesterday. In fact, if they were saying that Mr. Bush was sidelining Yasser Arafat, they were saying -- they are saying it was also a green light to Ariel Sharon to continue battling Palestinian terror, battling the Palestinian suicide bombers, in the way he deems best, and what Mr. Sharon has been doing, and that was evidenced again last night and today, is that he is taking the battle of the suicide bombers into the Palestinian towns. The Israeli forces have gone in force to Hebron. They now are in control of seven of the eight Palestinian towns on the West Bank. They say this is essential to root out the Palestinian bombers at source, and they had seemed to be only entrenching there.

So, the element of Israeli military control not contested by the president at this stage, and the onus being entirely on the Palestinian side to make for the change.

But having said that, there are Israeli leaders who say the importance of this Bush message was that in it laid down a new marker for the Middle East, and that this will set a new direction, even if the Palestinians are not, at least at the first stage, willing to entertain that notion.

Here is what we heard from a leading member of Ariel Sharon's national unity government.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN MERIDOR, ISRAELI CABINET MINISTER: It is a new system now, it is a new ball game. Everybody understands what the Americans are saying. I believe it will have an effect on Europe, on the UN, on Russians, on the other Arabs. I think the president said what he said, understanding what the other moderate Arab leaders think, having learned the situation on the ground. His decision is of great importance. Does it lead immediately to resolution of the conflict? No, it doesn't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KESSEL: No resolution of the conflict immediately, well, that's an understatement. But it does mean -- it does suggest that this ongoing battle between the Palestinian suicide bombers and Israel's forceful response to it remains the key issue, but it could still be, if the Arab world takes up the president on this -- on his vision down the line, that that marker that the U.S. has laid down now could still affect this equation. But for the moment, it is that battle on the ground that holds sway -- Leon.

HARRIS: Jerrold Kessel in Jerusalem. Thank you very much.

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