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CNN Saturday Morning News

Bush Will Host Meetings With Sharon, Mubarak

Aired June 08, 2002 - 08:01   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Our top story this morning, President Bush hosts two key meetings over the next few days in a push for peace in the Middle East. He will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Washington on Monday and ahead of those talks, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is with Mr. Bush this weekend at Camp David.

CNN White House correspondent Kelly Wallace joins us live with the latest on all those details -- hi, Kelly.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Kyra.

Well, this administration definitely facing some pressure to come forward with some plan about really how to move forward from here. And you could say President Bush gave us all a bit of a headline yesterday because he said after his meetings with Egyptian President Mubarak and with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, he said he would talk to the country about how he thinks "we should move forward from here."

Now, aides refusing to spell out what that means, but the indication is this president getting close to putting out a plan of his own. Now, the president and President Mubarak met Friday evening at Camp David. They will be having breakfast together and then will go before reporters a little bit later this morning. The two men met at the White House a little bit earlier this year, back in March.

President Mubarak will be coming here, though, trying to press Mr. Bush to set a time line for negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians and a time line for the creation of a Palestinian state. Now, U.S. officials are saying they are not ruling in or ruling out whether Mr. Bush will propose such a time line.

The president, though, will face some pressure from the Israelis when Mr. Bush meets with Mr. Sharon on Monday, because the Israelis have said that they are very much reluctant to engage in any detailed political discussions about the thorniest issues until the violence comes to an end. And yesterday, during his meeting with members of Congress, the president talking to reporters, he sounded a bit optimistic, but once again, he had very harsh words for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Progress is being made. The Arab world now understands they need to be involved in pushing for peace and fighting against the terrorist actions that have, that make it very difficult to achieve a peace. I still am disappointed in Mr. Arafat's leadership. He needs to, he needs to, he needs to cut off the terrorist activities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: And Mr. Sharon when he comes here to the White House is expected to say that the Israelis will not negotiate with the Palestinian leader, but the Egyptians and other Arab leaders will say they must negotiate with Mr. Arafat since he is the leader of the Palestinian people.

And, Kyra, we are once again watching this administration maneuver through competing pressures here, because we are watching more harsh criticism of the Palestinian leader and we're seeing this administration reach out to other moderate Palestinian leaders, but at the same time saying that Chairman Arafat is, in fact, the leader of the Palestinian people and he must be dealt with -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, Kelly Wallace, thank you.

And Kelly will be back in our 9:00 hour to talk about homeland security. Kelly, we'll see you then.

WALLACE: Sure.

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