United States Vice President Richard Cheney said Sunday he had no current plans to meet with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat because the latter had yet to meet U.S. conditions for curbing Middle East violence.
Cheney spoke before Sunday night talks in Israel that were arranged by U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni with the Israelis and Palestinians. The two sides have endorsed a U.S. cease-fire plan in principle but remain divided on several major issues, AP said.
The outcome of that meeting could determine whether the vice president goes to Egypt this week for talks with Arafat.
Asked if he would meet Arafat, Cheney said, "I imagine I will at some point, but there's nothing currently scheduled."
He added, "So far, the conditions on the ground have not warranted my going to a meeting."
Cheney framed a possible meeting as "just one more piece, if you will, of the whole proposition" toward peacemaking. "I wouldn't overdo it in the sense that somehow everybody's focused in on this is the be-all and end-all of the process. It's not. It's a part of the process," he said on CNN's "Late Edition" program.
U.S. officials have said that a Cheney-Arafat meeting would depend on Arafat meeting several conditions, such as renouncing terrorism as a weapon and rounding up militants.
Cheney said if Arafat would "put out the kind of effort that we haven't seen up until now ... then I'd be prepared to meet with him. But to date they have not gotten to that point yet."
The Bush administration is "confident he is capable of doing much more than he has, but up to now he has not expended the level of effort we think is warranted," Cheney said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Meanwhile, US President George W. Bush said Saturday during a visit to Peru that the administration has "made it clear to Mr. Arafat that he is not doing all he can do to fight off terror."
Cheney said he had spoken with Zinni as late as Saturday night and kept in daily touch with US Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Cheney said Arafat must show that he is working to put into place provisions of a proposal by CIA Director George Tenet that calls for Palestinians to rein in militants and collect their weapons, as well as intelligence-sharing with Israeli security officials, AP reported.
"If, in fact, Arafat will do what he's in the past said he will do, if he actually deliver on the Tenet plan, if he'll move to prevent on the violence and do what's required of Tenet ... if in fact those steps are actually implemented, then at that point I'll be prepared to meet with Mr. Arafat," Cheney said. "To date, that hasn't happened and therefore there's no meeting currently scheduled."
Zinni faces pressure to reach a deal before the Arab League summit in Beirut this week, which will focus heavily on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Arafat wants to attend, however Israel has not given him permission to go and may keep him grounded if there is no truce deal.
Infiltrators
Israeli troops killed four men who had apparently crossed over from Jordan Sunday afternoon during a wide-scale operation on the southern slopes of the occupied Golan Heights, east of the Jewish settlement of Tel Katzir.
Around 2 P.M. (local time), Israeli soldiers spotted the four armed men close to the border with Jordan and opened fire. Three were killed instantly, while one managed to escape. He was located just a short time later and also killed.
The search for the infiltrators was launched after Israeli soldiers discovered tracks near the Israeli-Jordanian-Syrian border Sunday morning, shortly after a touch in the electronic border fence was recorded. Israeli army and police forces combed the area from first light for signs of a possible infiltration.
According to Israeli reports, the Jordanian army informed the Israeli side that it had killed two people overnight, who were apparently trying to cross into Israel, in the area close to the border. They were apparently killed before the tracks were discovered. It is thought that two of the infiltrators crossed back into Jordan and were shot dead by the Jordanian forces.
An official Jordanian military spokesman said on Sunday
that a group of people at 8:15 pm Saturday night shot at a patrol on duty at the northern borders, where the Yarmouk and Jordan Rivers converge.
The group fled the scene and none of the personnel of the patrol was injured. The area was under search for the perpetrators, the statement said.
Settler Killed
One settler was killed in a shooting attack near the West Bank settlement of Ateret, north of Ramallah, Sunday morning. Israel Radio reported that Palestinians opened fire on the woman's car around 7.30 A.M. (local time), mortally wounding her. She succumbed to her wounds a short time later.
Israeli security forces conducted a search of the area for the gunmen, who escaped. One Israeli soldier was lightly wounded when the troops came under fire. Israel Radio quoted Palestinian sources as saying that a Palestinian policeman had been killed in the fire fight. Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for this attack.
According to Haaretz, Jerusalem police were on high alert Sunday after warnings of possible suicide attacks in this city. Large numbers of officers were deployed Saturday night throughout the city, along the seam line between the east and west parts of the city and in areas containing cafe bars, theaters and other places of entertainment. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
