OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 29 June — US Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday backed Palestinian demands for outside observers to monitor any future Israeli-Palestinian steps toward a peace accord. However, after Powell made his remarks to reporters at a news conference with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in the West Bank town of Ramallah, a senior State Department official said in Washington the secretary had not endorsed a plan for “international” monitors or any notion of an “observer force.”
“He said some monitors by some group,” the official said. “He did not use the word ‘international’ and he did not use the word ‘force.’ The secretary didn’t endorse Arafat’s plan or anyone else’s plan for that matter,” the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
He added, however, that the secretary had not been misquoted in earlier news reports that carried Powell’s comments. Arafat has long called for international observers to be deployed but Israel strongly opposes such a mission. The United States in the past had demurred on the issue, refusing to take a public stance until the Jewish state agreed to at least consider it.
In fact, the United States twice in past seven months has vetoed UN Security Council resolutions calling for an international protection force for the Palestinians. But, in the news conference with Arafat, Powell said he believed an outside observation team would be an appropriate way to ensure Israeli and Palestinian compliance on any agreement they might reach on the timing of confidence-building steps aimed at bringing the parties back to peace talks.
“I think if we get into the confidence-building measures, there will be a need for monitors and observers to see what’s happening on the ground, to serve as interlocutors and to go to points of friction and make independent observations,” Powell said.
“I think there is a clear understanding of the need for some kind of monitoring or observation function performed by some group,” he said after more than two hours of talks with Arafat. During the meeting, Arafat said he had raised with Powell the importance of observers, noting that such missions had worked well in the past in other areas.
