Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

Colin Powell's Peace Settlement Speech Extraordinarily Anticipated by Middle East

Aired November 19, 2001 - 06:29   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.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: In the Middle East, people are awaiting Colin Powell's vision for a settlement in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. The Secretary of State is to outline his vision in a widely anticipated speech at the University of Louisville.

CNN's Jerrold Kessel is joining us from Jerusalem now with word on what both sides are hoping to hear -- Jerrold.

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Donna.

And there is an extraordinary degree of anticipation for this speech -- this policy speech by the Secretary of State among both Israelis and Palestinians as they wait to see whether indeed what, as you say, has been billed as the U.S. vision of how a peace settlement might shape up whether it lives up to that billing.

Now for weeks there has been enormous pressure to shift the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli violence away from violence and back into a negotiating mold. And the United States has been under some pressure as it tried to ensure that it kept the Arab nations and the Muslim states on board of -- with its international global war on terror that it satisfied their demands that it readdress the issue of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict or at least make a deeper involvement in trying to get some kind of settlement. And those pressures have been stepped up considerably in recent days.

The European Community was here. They've been meeting with leading members of the European Union with both the Palestinians and the Israeli leadership. And they've been at pains to say that there's no need for a new peace plan. And Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, of course will say exactly the same thing, that he's not about to surprise the world by laying out a completely new U.S. plan for a peace settlement and that what he has in mind is drawing the parameters. Well it's those parameters that will be the focus, the attention. And one thing in particular, the question of whether there is a specific timeframe for getting away from the violence and back to the negotiating table.

When the Secretary of State was here back in the summer last time, he acquiesced, and the United States seemed to acquiesce, and the Israeli Prime Minister's demand -- Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's demand that there be seven days of complete calm once a cease-fire went into effect and then a six-week cooling-off period and that only then could they get back to the negotiations proper. Well there's been a lot of speculation whether Mr. Powell might put on the table a diminishing amount of time that's needed, whether he would not no longer back that seven-day cooling-off period and that this could lead to some kind of a set (ph) too with the Israelis.

Well if that is the Secretary of State's intention, then there was something of a preemptive strike, you may call it, by Prime Minister Sharon yesterday when he met with the European leaders when he said that he was unbending, unyielding on that demand for a fixed testing time to see whether Yasser Arafat keeps the cease-fire.

Here's what Ariel Sharon had to say only yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARIEL SHARON, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Meeting between myself and the Americans, we decided then that we need seven days in order to watch how Arafat implements the cease-fire. So that's what we have agreed and that is our position and that is going to be our position in the future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KESSEL: And so this has only heightened the anticipation of what Mr. Powell might say and whether he will, in fact, get involved in this question of the timeframe and how then the Israeli Prime Minister would respond to that. Whether there will be a vision or not -- a full-scale vision of how the U.S. sees a perspective peace settlement, there is the very real belief that the United States is planning to get deeper involved in the efforts to push towards such a settlement. And both sides are waiting very anxiously to see what Mr. Powell will have to say -- Donna.

KELLEY: From Jerusalem, our Jerrold Kessel, thanks very much.

Secretary Powell's speech at the University of Louisville, it's scheduled for 11:00 in the morning Eastern time and CNN will bring it to you live.

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