|
Powell says US honest broker despite Mideast shift
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-04-16 08:53
 |
| U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell speaks
to the press at the State Department in Washington April 15, 2004.
[Reuters] | U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell,
speaking a day after the United States infuriated Arabs with a landmark
pro-Israel policy shift, said on Thursday Washington remained an honest broker
between Israelis and Palestinians.
In a change that prompted the Arab League to accuse the United States of
bias, U.S. President Bush broke with a decades-old policy to say Israeli
settlements could stay in parts of the West Bank captured in the 1967 Middle
East War.
Powell said the shift simply reflected what past negotiators on both sides
had accepted -- that Israel would retain some Jewish settlements expanded over
many years on occupied land in any final peace deal.
"I don't think we have abandoned our role as an honest broker at all," the
top U.S. diplomat told reporters.
 |
| Palestinian masked militants and supporters
of Fatah watch as a donkey wearing a picture of U.S. President George
W. Bush is walked past during a demonstration in Bureij Refugee Camp,
central Gaza Strip, Thursday, April 15, 2004. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon now can count on unprecedented U.S. backing for his plan to
hold on to parts of the West Bank. [AP] | "The
reality is such that previous negotiators came to the conclusion that
adjustments would be needed and there's no reason to expect that future
negotiators will not reach that same conclusion," he added.
It has long been informally recognized that any final settlement would
involve a land swap. But that was to occur in the context of Israeli-Palestinian
peace talks, with Palestinians trading those concessions for benefits.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan criticized Bush for ignoring the wishes of
Palestinians, while the European Union emphasized it would not accept border
changes unless they were agreed to by both sides.
On Wednesday, Bush endorsed Israel's claim to parts of the West Bank seized
in the 1967 Middle East war as part of U.S. backing for an Israeli plan to pull
out of another occupied area, the Gaza Strip.
He also adopted the Israeli position that Palestinian refugees cannot expect
to return to their homes inside Israel.
Palestinians said the moves killed peace negotiations that have been dormant
for months.
Washington has been the main peace broker in the conflict for decades despite
a perception among many Arabs it is biased because it is Israel's most important
ally.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher acknowledged the new U.S. policy
could influence the sides' positions at talks, but Powell said the move should
not "prejudge or prejudice the outcome of those negotiations."
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
Today's
Top News |
|
|
|
Top World
News |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
