Powell says "fundamental transformation" needed within
PA
Justifying President George
W Bush's insistence that Palestinians must dump Yasser
Arafat, US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said there
needs to be a "fundamental transformation" within
the Palestinian Authority to resolve the Middle East crisis
and called on Israel to end occupation and settlement
activities.
A Palestinian state could come into being within three
years if a more responsible Palestinian leadership emerges,
Powell said in an interview to the US Government's Arabic-language
Radio Sawa yesterday.
He said "fundamental transformation" within
the Palestinian Authority was needed to move forward to
a two-state solution -- a Palestinian state living side
by side with Israel.
The US will also be requiring commitments from Israel
-- end the occupation, end settlement activity, return
revenues to the Palestinian Government and make life better
for the Palestinian people, he said. Echoing Bush's remarks
on leadership change in Palestine, Powell said "every
initiative we took (for resolving the Middle East crisis)
kept crashing against the rocks of terror and violence.
I had many, many conversations with Chairman Arafat about
this problem, imploring them to do more, not to say more
but to do more.
"Unfortunately, we have not seen enough action from
the current leadership of the Palestinian Authority that
did anything to bring things under control, even within
the reduced security assets that they have".
Washington,
June 26, 2002 (PTI)
