03 May 2002

International Community Seeks to Maintain Mideast Peace Momentum, May 2, 2002

(State's Boucher says Quartet expects leadership from Arafat)

The United States will work with the European Union, the United Nations and the Russian Federation to prepare an international conference on pursuing peace in the Middle East to maintain the current momentum toward peace, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Briefing reporters at the State Department in Washington May 3, Boucher said the four parties, called the "Quartet" when dealing jointly with Middle East issues, agreed that the conference would be held at the ministerial level this summer.

Summing up the meeting of Quartet representatives in Washington May 2, Boucher said the group wants to see Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat exercise leadership now that Israelis have allowed him freedom of movement outside his compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The Quartet also seeks to maintain the peace momentum by working with outside parties, such as the Saudis, Jordanians and Egyptians, Boucher said. The spokesman said President Bush will meet with Jordan's King Abdullah and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon next week as part of this effort.

The Quartet believes that progress toward peace requires improving security, getting humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people and accelerating political negotiations, Boucher said.

Following is an excerpt from Boucher's May 3 press briefing with his comments about a Middle East peace conference:
(begin excerpt)

QUESTION: Obviously the conference covers a lot of ground, and there wasn't all that much detail yesterday, understandably. First of all, who would attend, basically? Would this deal be on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute with maybe the Syrian track, or even with Lebanon? Could you provide a little more detail about that?

MR. BOUCHER: Good questions. Those are the kinds of questions that we will be exploring with the Quartet and the other parties as we try to prepare for such a meeting. All we can really tell you at this point, all the details that we think are more or less settled, at least in our own minds, are that it should a meeting at Secretary Powell's level, ministerial level. For us it would be Secretary Powell who would lead the US delegation or team.

We should try to prepare for a meeting early summer, or summer. We'll be working with the Quartet to try to work on preparing this international meeting in consultation with parties and states in the region. Other members of the international community, I am sure, will get in touch with other nations or people in the Middle East who may be interested in pursuing peace.

But how those details will sort themselves out in the end is really just not known. It's not that I'm hiding it from you; it's just not known at this point. What the Secretary announced yesterday is we would begin to do the work to prepare such a meeting, and those kind of details have to be worked out in that process.

QUESTION: But it must be -- you would think it's the Arab-Israeli conflict, not the Palestinian-Israeli conflict narrowly; is that possible?

MR. BOUCHER: It will depend on the participants, and we'll see. We'll be in touch with all the potential participants in that regard, and we'll just see who wants to come to the table and what they bring at this moment.

QUESTION: Richard, in the past, it's been pretty much standard practice for you guys to be extremely loathe to announce any kind of meeting or conference, or in fact any kind of travel or diplomatic phone call, until it's actually been all set and arranged, and you have all the details nailed down as to who, what, where, when. Was the announcement yesterday trying to spark anew -- or trying to spark renewed interest?

MR. BOUCHER: Trying to send people crazy in newsrooms throughout the country? No, not really.

QUESTION: No, no, no. To try and keep -- to try and keep what was referred to yesterday as progress and a new window of opportunity from the resolution of the Ramallah crisis -- to try to people looking ahead?

MR. BOUCHER: Well, I don't know whether to take that as an observation or advice, the first part of your question, because if you want us not to tell you things, we're happy to do that. But --

QUESTION: You're doing a great job of it.

(Laughter.)

MR. BOUCHER: Let me --

QUESTION: What I'm pointing out is --

MR. BOUCHER: Let's both get away from the gratuitous part of it and say I think there is an intention on our part to try to maintain the momentum. We've talked indeed about a variety of steps that we want to take to keep moving forward. We want to see, I think first, as the Secretary and the President both said yesterday, we want to see Chairman Arafat exercise leadership now that he is able to move about, and that the Israeli withdrawal from Ramallah has been completed.

We do have a situation in Bethlehem that still needs to be resolved, and that is something that I think we've said yesterday we intend to contact, keep in touch with the parties and try to encourage them to resolve that as soon as possible. But we look first for Chairman Arafat to exercise the leadership and the authority in the security area.

Second, there are a number of things that we're looking at to keep this process going, to make sure that the opportunity that we have now, that we take advantage of that. Part of it is working with people outside. We have been working, as you know, very closely with the Saudi Government, with the Jordanians, with the Egyptians. The President himself is involved in this effort, having met with many of those people and seeing Prime Minister Sharon next week, seeing King Abdullah of Jordan next week. The Secretary talked yesterday about going back to the region, talked about the possibility that General Zinni would go back to the region, that Director Tenet would be involved further.

So there are a number of steps, among which is a ministerial-level meeting in early summer, that we do want to take to keep that momentum going. And we've talked about these steps because we are preparing them, we are working on them. As they coalesce more and more definitely, we'll give you more details. But the essential outlines of what we're trying to do in terms of real progress on the security front, real humanitarian assistance to address the urgent problems that are out there, and serious and accelerated negotiations, that's the goal; and all these different pieces, we're trying to bring them together in a way that creates a certain momentum in the region towards peace, because that's the only way out of the difficulties the violence has created.

(end excerpt)