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CNN Sunday Morning

Arafat Announces Changes in Palestinian Authority

Aired June 09, 2002 - 11:02   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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: To our top story now, changes to the Palestinian power structure. For the latest, we go live to the Middle East where CNN's Matthew Chance is standing by at Yasser Arafat's Ramallah headquarters and he has the latest there. Hi there, Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fredricka, and there has been so much pressure applied to Yasser Arafat to reform his Palestinian Authority to make it more accountable, more transparent, less corrupt. Finally, those reforms have been announced or at least some of them have been announced throughout the course of today. Within the last hour or so, reducing in brief, the number of ministers in the Palestinian Authority, a very cumbersome authority it has been for the several years since it's been in force, from 32 to 22 figures. The post of interior minister has been surrendered by Yasser Arafat and handed over to another senior figure in the Palestinian Authority.

There has also been a renewed commitment to elections, presidential elections being held here for a new Palestinian president but no date has been set for any such elections to take place.

Israel, of course, has made it a condition of its revival of negotiations with the Palestinians that reform is announced and is actually implemented in the Palestinian Authority. What's happened today may not be enough to satisfy the Israelis entirely, at least not according to Saeb Erakat, the chief negotiator of the Palestinian Authority.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAEB ERAKAT, CHIEF NEGOTIATOR, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY: I don't think that Sharon cares if we are ruled by the Boy Scouts or Attila the Hun, and I think the only meaning of Sharon when he speaks about reform is to get rid of the elected Palestinian president, President Arafat.

Sharon, while we're having Palestinian reform, Sharon is deforming us. There's something called Sharon's deforms, as we call them, in our legal system, in resuming the occupation, in continuing the attack, the destruction of Palestinian areas, splitting (UNINTELLIGIBLE), settlement activities, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) policy as far as Jerusalem.

The end game of Sharon is using reform as a pretext in order to achieve his end game, that is the destruction of the Palestinian Authority, getting rid of Arafat and replacing this authority with the Israeli civil administration and the resumption of full Israeli occupation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHANCE: If the aim is to get rid of Yasser Arafat, then the Israelis have failed at least from this occasion because, despite all the reforms that have been implemented, reduction in the number of ministries and everything else, Yasser Arafat is still the man in ultimate control of the Palestinian Authority -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, thank you very much, Matthew Chance, coming from Ramallah there. The Palestinian announcement comes as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon prepares to meet with President Bush tomorrow. It will be Mr. Sharon's sixth meeting with the president since the Israeli leader took office last year. CNN White House Correspondent Kelly Wallace is at the White House with reaction from there. Hi there, Kelly.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Fredricka. Well, no formal reaction from the White House just yet to these changes that the Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat says he will make.

They key for the administration, though, according to one senior U.S. official is it wants to see meaningful reform, so the sense we're getting is U.S. officials will be looking to see how significant these changes really are.

It does appear that the Palestinians are doing this or getting the word out, hoping to influence in some way Monday's meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Bush, the prime minister arriving in the Washington area early this morning. We know that he did ask for this session with Mr. Bush. It appears he wanted to talk to President Bush after Mr. Bush met with a range of Egyptian leaders.

Now even before the session in the Oval Office, Mr. Sharon is making it clear that the Israelis will not engage in any political discussions until the violence comes to an end.

In an opinion piece in today's "New York Times," Mr. Sharon says: "Israel must defeat terrorism. It can not negotiate under fire. Israel has made painful concessions for peace before and will demonstrate diplomatic flexibility to make peace again, but it requires first and foremost a reliable partner for peace."

Now you can say President Bush heard a dramatically different perspective on Saturday when he met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak up at Camp David, up in the Maryland mountains. The Egyptian leader came to this meeting hoping to convince Mr. Bush to set a timeline for negotiations between the two sides and for the creation of a Palestinian state.

Mr. Bush, though, saying he's not ready to commit to such a timeline, the U.S. leader also having tough words for Yasser Arafat, saying he continues to be disappointed in his leadership.

At that point, Mr. Mubarak making the case that the international community, the U.S. president, the Israelis all should give Mr. Arafat a chance to perform.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOSNI MUBARAK, EGYPTIAN PRESIDENT: Arafat now is weak, very weak. He has no police, not intention, no tools to work with. That's why he's very weak. If you ask the people now, they say they are fed up, but if he's given the authority and given the tools, I think he would work very good. If not, the people who elected him would not accept him afterwards. We should give him a chance anyway.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: And those comments coming from President Mubarak in an interview he did on this Sunday morning with "FOX NEWS SUNDAY." You could say, Fredricka, no breakthroughs are expected to come out of Monday's meeting between Mr. Bush and Prime Minister Sharon.

The sense we're getting is after this meeting at some point down the road, President Bush will have something to say about how to move forward from here, but he is going to have competing pressures, Arab leaders wanting a game plan right now, the Israelis saying until the violence ends, there shall be no political discussions -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Now, Kelly, do we know what the schedule is for tomorrow as Mr. Bush and Mr. Sharon meet?

WALLACE: Yes, I believe that Mr. Sharon, who is staying very close to the White House over at Blair House and he doesn't have anything on his schedule on this day, he will be meeting in the morning with Mr. Bush.

The two men should be coming before reporters in some type of photo opportunity and then they will be having lunch together, and it does appear that Mr. Sharon will be heading up to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, I believe, to meet with lawmakers before making his way over to London to spend some time with the British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks very much, Kelly Wallace from the White House.

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