OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 20 March — US Vice President Dick Cheney said yesterday he would meet Palestinian President Yasser Arafat as early as next week if Arafat took steps to end raging Israeli-Palestinian violence. If Cheney met Arafat, he would be the highest-level Bush administration official to do so. Such a meeting could pave the way for an end to President George W. Bush’s boycott of Arafat, which has angered Palestinians who cite it as evidence of bias in Washington’s Middle East policy.
US special Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni met the Palestinian leader yesterday and told him Cheney was ready to meet him, the vice president told a news conference with the hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. “I told the prime minister that I would be ready to meet with Chairman Arafat in the period ahead at a site in the region to be determined,” Cheney said.
Palestinian representatives had earlier expressed irritation that Cheney was not meeting them on his current trip. He flew to Turkey, the last stop on his 11-nation Middle East tour, from Israel later in the evening, returning to Washington today. The vice president said he could return to the region as early as next week provided Arafat showed “a 100 percent effort” to end violence and implement a 2001 plan brokered by CIA Director George Tenet to enforce an Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire.
“I cannot emphasize enough how important it will be this week for Chairman Arafat to take steps to get the cease-fire started and to start implementation of the Tenet work plan,” Cheney said.
Sharon for his part told the joint news conference after talks with Cheney, “I told the vice president that the implementation of Tenet will enable Arafat to go outside the Palestinian territories.” But he hinted that the Palestinian leader could be kept in exile if he utters “incitements to violence” or there are “terrorist operations” against Israel in his absence.
Top Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rudeina welcomed Cheney’s offer as “a step in the right direction and a start toward correcting the US position,” which has been perceived in the Arab world as leaning toward Israel. He added that “Sharon’s statement is not enough and it carries a provocation. We ask him to stop the aggression and urgently implement Tenet”.
Intermittent violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip left one Israeli and three Palestinians dead yesterday. Just hours after the Israeli Army began pulling out of the remaining Palestinian areas it was occupying overnight, an Israeli officer was shot dead, Israeli military sources said.
The two Palestinians were chased down by Israeli troops before being shot dead. In another incident during the night, a 50-year-old Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli gunfire near Deir Al-Balah in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources said.
