Jordan Times
Wednesday, October 3, 2001

Bush: Palestinian state was always part of Mideast vision

“The idea of a Palestinian state has always been part of a vision, so long as the right to Israel to exist is respected,” he told reporters in the White House Oval Office.

Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking later after a meeting with his Indian counterpart, echoed that statement.

“There has always been a vision in our thinking as well as in previous administrations' thinking that there would be a Palestinian state that exists at the same time that the security of the state of Israel was also recognised, guaranteed and accepted by all parties,” Powell said.

“That vision is alive and well, and we hope that it will come about as a result of negotiations between the two sides,” he said, contradicting reports that the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington had stalled US plans to unveil a major Middle East peace initiative.

“The events of Sept. 11 don't really play into this,” he said. “We were hard at work before the 11th of September on trying to help in the region, and we are hard at work after the 11th of September.”

However, Powell conceded that work had perhaps not been noticed in the crush of events after the attacks, saying: “We are always reviewing what we can do, how we can make our statements clearer.

“I'm always considering what statements I can make in order to make sure people understand the American position,” he said.

Although Powell denied any initiative had been stalled, senior officials said the terror strikes had temporarily forced a postponement in more active US engagement in the Middle East.

Eager to enlist Arab and Muslim backing in the anti-terror coalition, Powell and other officials stepped up their contacts in the region shortly after the attacks.

Since Sept. 11, the United States has waded into to the crisis, pressuring both sides into signing a ceasefire deal last week to allow it to enlist Arab and Muslim states in his world anti-terror coalition.

Bush said Washington was “working diligently” to end a year-long cycle of violence and reiterated his strong support for a roadmap to peace crafted by an international panel headed by former US Senator George Mitchell.

“First things first, when it comes to the Middle East, we've got to get to Mitchell,” which calls for a ceasefire followed by confidence-building measures, he said.

“I fully understand that progress is made in centimetres in the Middle East. And we believe we're making some progress,” Bush added.

Earlier, a senior US State Department official who declined to be named said the United States “had started in fact to make more strenuous efforts in the Middle East” before the strikes on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

The official did confirm newspaper reports that a first meeting between Bush and Arafat had been suggested and was being actively worked on.

The official and others said the efforts were aimed at producing substantial progress — particularly in the form of a meeting between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres — by the annual UN General Assembly session that was postponed in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Arafat and Peres have in fact now met but a truce reached between them is increasingly fragile and the official said postponement of the UN session hurt the initiative.

“We had been looking at the UN session not as time to unveil a plan but to get some momentum,” he said. “We haven't proceeded exactly as we might have after the attacks but the basic outline is still in play.”

One official disputed accounts in The Washington Post and The New York Times that said Secretary of State Colin Powell was to have given in speech at the UN voicing US support for a Palestinian state — the first time a Republican administration would have done so.

That official, close to Powell, said the secretary had not planned to make such a speech and that Bush's address to the world body was not intended to focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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