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CNN Live At Daybreak
Palestinian Power Struggle
Aired April 23, 2003 - 05:36 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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Now on to the Middle East and that Palestinian power struggle. Yasser Arafat is coming under pressure from the U.S., Britain and the Arab world to end a stand-off with his prime minister designate as a deadline fast approaches.
Our Jerrold Kessel joins us live from the West Bank town of Ramallah -- good morning, Jerrold.
JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
A perfectly scrumptious spring day here, the kind of day they used to say was peaches and cream day. But it's not such a good day for the man in the building behind me. That's the Mokata (ph) headquarters of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Now, Yasser Arafat's had some difficult days over the last year or so, often beleaguered with Israeli tanks surrounding his headquarters, his battered headquarters here, where he remains beleaguered. But that's not the reason he's under pressure today. The pressure is because he has to make a decision or help his prime minister designate Abu Mazen, Mahmoud Abbas, to make a decision before midnight today -- that's in less than 12 hours -- about the composition of the new cabinet which Abu Mazen had been asked to form.
The two men are absolutely at loggerheads, have been for several days. And they haven't spoken since Saturday night directly. And we tried to get a feeling of what Abu Mazen is thinking at this time. We went to see if we could speak to him at his house just a couple of minutes drive away from here in Ramallah. He wasn't even prepared to have his picture taken. All we got was the motorcade speeding away from his house to his office just a couple of blocks away here from Yasser Arafat's headquarters and still the only attempts to try to resolve this deadlock through intermediaries in between.
Now, some are saying, close to Abu Mazen, there are reports that he says that his relations with Yasser Arafat have plummeted to such a low that he sees no way out and that in the end he won't be able to form a government. That's one view.
But we've heard another view, more optimistic, from other Palestinian leaders, including their top spokesman, Saeb Erakat, who said it was absolutely imperative that a government be formed by tonight in the sense that Abu Mazen and Yasser Arafat remove their differences and that there's an announcement of Abu Mazen's new cabinet.
Here's what Saeb Erakat had to say a short while ago. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAEB ERAKAT, CHIEF PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR: We should continue exerting every possible effort in the next few hours. I believe the inability for Abu Mazen to form a government by 12 midnight tonight would have a devastating impact on the peace process and the most important thing is to enable the Palestinian people to be engaged in the peace process and to enable the (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KESSEL: And, of course, so much is at stake in terms of the possibility of getting Palestinians and Israelis back from confrontation to negotiation with that road map. That's why the pressure is on Yasser Arafat. An Egyptian envoy, a special envy from Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, arrived a few minutes ago at the Mokata headquarters here, only the latest in a stream of visitors, phone calls that have been putting, piling the pressure, piling the heat on Yasser Arafat.
At the moment, we haven't heard that he's yielded -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right, Jerrold Kessel reporting live from Ramallah.
Many thanks to you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired April 23, 2003 - 05:36 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Now on to the Middle East and that Palestinian power struggle. Yasser Arafat is coming under pressure from the U.S., Britain and the Arab world to end a stand-off with his prime minister designate as a deadline fast approaches.
Our Jerrold Kessel joins us live from the West Bank town of Ramallah -- good morning, Jerrold.
JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
A perfectly scrumptious spring day here, the kind of day they used to say was peaches and cream day. But it's not such a good day for the man in the building behind me. That's the Mokata (ph) headquarters of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Now, Yasser Arafat's had some difficult days over the last year or so, often beleaguered with Israeli tanks surrounding his headquarters, his battered headquarters here, where he remains beleaguered. But that's not the reason he's under pressure today. The pressure is because he has to make a decision or help his prime minister designate Abu Mazen, Mahmoud Abbas, to make a decision before midnight today -- that's in less than 12 hours -- about the composition of the new cabinet which Abu Mazen had been asked to form.
The two men are absolutely at loggerheads, have been for several days. And they haven't spoken since Saturday night directly. And we tried to get a feeling of what Abu Mazen is thinking at this time. We went to see if we could speak to him at his house just a couple of minutes drive away from here in Ramallah. He wasn't even prepared to have his picture taken. All we got was the motorcade speeding away from his house to his office just a couple of blocks away here from Yasser Arafat's headquarters and still the only attempts to try to resolve this deadlock through intermediaries in between.
Now, some are saying, close to Abu Mazen, there are reports that he says that his relations with Yasser Arafat have plummeted to such a low that he sees no way out and that in the end he won't be able to form a government. That's one view.
But we've heard another view, more optimistic, from other Palestinian leaders, including their top spokesman, Saeb Erakat, who said it was absolutely imperative that a government be formed by tonight in the sense that Abu Mazen and Yasser Arafat remove their differences and that there's an announcement of Abu Mazen's new cabinet.
Here's what Saeb Erakat had to say a short while ago. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAEB ERAKAT, CHIEF PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR: We should continue exerting every possible effort in the next few hours. I believe the inability for Abu Mazen to form a government by 12 midnight tonight would have a devastating impact on the peace process and the most important thing is to enable the Palestinian people to be engaged in the peace process and to enable the (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KESSEL: And, of course, so much is at stake in terms of the possibility of getting Palestinians and Israelis back from confrontation to negotiation with that road map. That's why the pressure is on Yasser Arafat. An Egyptian envoy, a special envy from Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, arrived a few minutes ago at the Mokata headquarters here, only the latest in a stream of visitors, phone calls that have been putting, piling the pressure, piling the heat on Yasser Arafat.
At the moment, we haven't heard that he's yielded -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right, Jerrold Kessel reporting live from Ramallah.
Many thanks to you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
