JORDAN: POWELL URGES PALESTINIANS TO SEIZE PEACE OPPORTUNITY CREATED BY ISRAELI PULLOUT PLAN.

Record ID: 350399

  • Title: JORDAN: POWELL URGES PALESTINIANS TO SEIZE PEACE OPPORTUNITY CREATED BY ISRAELI PULLOUT PLAN.
  • Date: 15th May 2004
  • Summary: (W5) AMMAN, JORDAN (MAY 15, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. GV/CU: US PLANE AIRFORCE ONE ON RUNWAY; CLOSE UP OF TAIL (2 SHOTS) 0.23 2. GV: STAIRS BEING MOVED INTO POSITION AS OFFICIALS WAIT 0.32 3. GV/TILT DOWN: US SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL LEAVING THE PLANE; GREETED BY OFFICIALS FROM JORDANIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY 0.54 4. GV/PAN: POWELL WALKI
  • Embargoed: 30th May 2004 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: AMMAN, JORDAN
  • Country: Jordan
  • Reuters ID: LVABFP0BMEFA5B5EBNKADIVV4ES3
  • Story Text: U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell urged Palestinians
    to seize the chance created by an Israeli plan to pull out of
    the Gaza Strip and said he believed they would take up the opportunity.



    U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell urged Palestinians on Saturday (May 15) to seize the chance created by an Israeli plan to pull out of the Gaza Strip and said he believed they would take up
    the opportunity.

    After talks with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie in the
    Jordanian capital Amman, Powell said that U.S. President George
    W. Bush was still committed to establishing a Palestinian state.

    It was Qurie's highest-level meeting with U.S. officials since he
    took office in November and took place at a time of Palestinian
    fury at Washington for giving unprecedented assurances to Israel
    in support of the Gaza pullout plan.

    "We think that in recent weeks, with the announcement by the
    Israelis that they intend to leave Gaza and certain settlements
    in the West Bank, we have been given a new opportunity and we
    hope to seize that opportunity," Powell told reporters.

    "I think that the Palestinians want to seize the opportunity,"
    he said.

    But he added that Palestinians wanted to know more about the
    proposal and see what restrictions it contained that would be
    to their disadvantage.

    "Frankly we have to wait and see what the proposal actually
    is," Powell said.

    Many Palestinians were furious at Bush's assurances in a letter
    to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last month that Israel
    could not be expected to give up all its West Bank settlements
    or to accept the return of Palestinian refugees.

    Palestinians saw his stance as making concessions affecting
    their vital interests without even consulting them.

    Powell is expected to meet other Arab leaders later on the
    sidelines of a World Economic Forum meeting in the Dead Sea.

    Powell noted that Sharon's pullout plan still faced review after
    being rejected by his right-wing Likud party in a May 2 referendum. Hard-liners said
    the plan would "reward terror" and opposed ceding any land
    captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

    "While waiting we are beginning to...organise ourselves towards
    the development of security plans (for)... taking control of Gaza,"
    he said.

    Qurie, who described the talks as "very, very constructive",
    said there was still a good chance that a Palestinian state could
    be created in 2005 -- a target date set by Bush in 2002 in a now violence-stymied "road map" for peace.


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