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CNN Live At Daybreak
Optimism Today in Aqaba
Aired June 04, 2003 - 05:02 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: They can seize the moment for peace today. President Bush and the Israeli and Palestinian leaders are meeting in Jordan this morning and despite a history of accord busting in the region, there is optimism today.
We begin our coverage with CNN's Christiane Amanpour -- good morning, Christiane.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol from Aqaba in Jordan, the Red Sea port. And just as a point of interest, we are in sight of Israel, as well. Behind me is the Israeli port city of Eilat.
Here today is where President Bush has arrived and is right now engaged in his meetings with the Israelis and he is scheduled to soon start talking with the prime minister of the Palestinians, Mahmoud Abbas. President Bush arrived earlier this morning from a summit meeting he held with Arab leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt yesterday. He came over to Aqaba and in the last couple of hours he's had handshakes and meetings with both the Israeli prime minister. And, indeed, the king of Jordan, who is the host of this meeting, has also been welcoming both the president and the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers.
What's going to happen is in parlance there are going to be two bilateral meetings. As I said, he was scheduled to first meet with the Israeli prime minister, now going on to meeting with Mahmoud Abbas and then they're going to have a joint meeting, the president and the two prime ministers, and after that there will be statements.
The statements is what everybody is looking towards because that will show the intent and the atmosphere, if you like, as this process gets kicked off. What we're looking for are comments, according to Israeli officials, who say that the Israeli statement will pledge Israel to supporting a viable and contiguous Palestinian state and also pledge Israel to meeting its commitments to dismantle illegal outposts of settlements in this first phase of the road map.
From the Palestinian side, we understand that we're going to be hearing the Palestinian leader talk about an end to the armed intifada, the armed uprising over the last several years, talk about the right of Israel to exist alongside a Palestinian state and talk about gathering all authority and all weapons under a central authority and that being the Palestinian Authority.
This is, in a way, a historic moment, because there are new players in this drama. A new president of the United States getting involved for the first time with fresh faces in terms of past peace processes. The Palestinian prime minister is new. The Israeli prime minister, this is the first time he's getting involved in this process with the Palestinians and, indeed, when we see the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers, that'll be the first picture we see of them together, even though they have met twice before over the last month.
So, there is quite a lot of hope. The mood seems to be one of optimism here today but also a great deal of skepticism and a great deal of recognition that enormous amounts of hard work and potential obstacles and hurdles lie along the road in the weeks and months and, in fact, the couple of years to come, as envisioned under this road map -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Christiane Amanpour live from Aqaba, Jordan this morning.
So what kind of hope do Palestinians have for the summit?
CNN's John Vause in is in East Jerusalem with more -- good morning, John.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And good morning to you, Carol.
Actually, we're in the village of Abu Dis, which is on the West Bank, but it's very, very close to Jerusalem. And if we could just show you the situation here in this Palestinian village on the West Bank, and this sums up what is happening in a lot of villages for all the Palestinians. There's a security wall here which was built by the Israelis in September last year. You can see the barbed wired. And, in fact, on that building just in the distance, you can see what looks like a sentry post.
Normally there are Israeli soldiers just in that gas station behind that wall there who keep a close watch on the Palestinians because when the soldiers aren't there, they try to sneak through the wall. Because that's just East Jerusalem just over there.
Now, for the Palestinians who do, in fact, have work permits -- and there's only about 100,000 of those anyway -- they're allowed to go into Jerusalem for work. But to make that journey, they have to travel down this road over here, and that's normally about a 30 or 40 minute drive, when, if that wall wasn't there, they'd be there in a matter of minutes.
And what they're saying is that that still leaves more than three million Palestinians stuck in towns like this. And if they have family and friends in other areas, like Jenin or Hebron, they're not allowed to go. And what they're saying is that this road map must address those issues immediately. They're saying those travel restrictions which were eased, which were announced by the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, as part of those confidence building measures, well, they've had no impact in places like this.
And as for the road map, what they're saying, they're saying it's all for Israel. The United States is here backing Israel and there's nothing in it for the Palestinians. And they point to the fact that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat is not there in Aqaba. And they say when you do not respect the Palestinian president, well, you don't respect the Palestinian people -- Carol.
COSTELLO: John Vause reporting live.
From the point of view of the Palestinians, Israeli settlements are potholes on the road map to peace.
CNN's Jerrold Kessel has a live report from one of those settlements at the bottom of the hour.
And you can follow the summit plus all the developments from the Middle East on our Web site. Go to cnn.com, AOL keyword: CNN.
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 June 4, 2003 - 05:02 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: They can seize the moment for peace today. President Bush and the Israeli and Palestinian leaders are meeting in Jordan this morning and despite a history of accord busting in the region, there is optimism today.
We begin our coverage with CNN's Christiane Amanpour -- good morning, Christiane.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol from Aqaba in Jordan, the Red Sea port. And just as a point of interest, we are in sight of Israel, as well. Behind me is the Israeli port city of Eilat.
Here today is where President Bush has arrived and is right now engaged in his meetings with the Israelis and he is scheduled to soon start talking with the prime minister of the Palestinians, Mahmoud Abbas. President Bush arrived earlier this morning from a summit meeting he held with Arab leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt yesterday. He came over to Aqaba and in the last couple of hours he's had handshakes and meetings with both the Israeli prime minister. And, indeed, the king of Jordan, who is the host of this meeting, has also been welcoming both the president and the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers.
What's going to happen is in parlance there are going to be two bilateral meetings. As I said, he was scheduled to first meet with the Israeli prime minister, now going on to meeting with Mahmoud Abbas and then they're going to have a joint meeting, the president and the two prime ministers, and after that there will be statements.
The statements is what everybody is looking towards because that will show the intent and the atmosphere, if you like, as this process gets kicked off. What we're looking for are comments, according to Israeli officials, who say that the Israeli statement will pledge Israel to supporting a viable and contiguous Palestinian state and also pledge Israel to meeting its commitments to dismantle illegal outposts of settlements in this first phase of the road map.
From the Palestinian side, we understand that we're going to be hearing the Palestinian leader talk about an end to the armed intifada, the armed uprising over the last several years, talk about the right of Israel to exist alongside a Palestinian state and talk about gathering all authority and all weapons under a central authority and that being the Palestinian Authority.
This is, in a way, a historic moment, because there are new players in this drama. A new president of the United States getting involved for the first time with fresh faces in terms of past peace processes. The Palestinian prime minister is new. The Israeli prime minister, this is the first time he's getting involved in this process with the Palestinians and, indeed, when we see the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers, that'll be the first picture we see of them together, even though they have met twice before over the last month.
So, there is quite a lot of hope. The mood seems to be one of optimism here today but also a great deal of skepticism and a great deal of recognition that enormous amounts of hard work and potential obstacles and hurdles lie along the road in the weeks and months and, in fact, the couple of years to come, as envisioned under this road map -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Christiane Amanpour live from Aqaba, Jordan this morning.
So what kind of hope do Palestinians have for the summit?
CNN's John Vause in is in East Jerusalem with more -- good morning, John.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And good morning to you, Carol.
Actually, we're in the village of Abu Dis, which is on the West Bank, but it's very, very close to Jerusalem. And if we could just show you the situation here in this Palestinian village on the West Bank, and this sums up what is happening in a lot of villages for all the Palestinians. There's a security wall here which was built by the Israelis in September last year. You can see the barbed wired. And, in fact, on that building just in the distance, you can see what looks like a sentry post.
Normally there are Israeli soldiers just in that gas station behind that wall there who keep a close watch on the Palestinians because when the soldiers aren't there, they try to sneak through the wall. Because that's just East Jerusalem just over there.
Now, for the Palestinians who do, in fact, have work permits -- and there's only about 100,000 of those anyway -- they're allowed to go into Jerusalem for work. But to make that journey, they have to travel down this road over here, and that's normally about a 30 or 40 minute drive, when, if that wall wasn't there, they'd be there in a matter of minutes.
And what they're saying is that that still leaves more than three million Palestinians stuck in towns like this. And if they have family and friends in other areas, like Jenin or Hebron, they're not allowed to go. And what they're saying is that this road map must address those issues immediately. They're saying those travel restrictions which were eased, which were announced by the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, as part of those confidence building measures, well, they've had no impact in places like this.
And as for the road map, what they're saying, they're saying it's all for Israel. The United States is here backing Israel and there's nothing in it for the Palestinians. And they point to the fact that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat is not there in Aqaba. And they say when you do not respect the Palestinian president, well, you don't respect the Palestinian people -- Carol.
COSTELLO: John Vause reporting live.
From the point of view of the Palestinians, Israeli settlements are potholes on the road map to peace.
CNN's Jerrold Kessel has a live report from one of those settlements at the bottom of the hour.
And you can follow the summit plus all the developments from the Middle East on our Web site. Go to cnn.com, AOL keyword: CNN.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
