New York, Sept 26: While US officials wait for the Palestinians to settle on a leadership that uproots terror, US Secretary of State Colin Powell is looking for help from Europeans, Russia and the United Nations in dismissing Yasser Arafat as a failed Palestinian leader. Since most of the world still sees Arafat as the Palestinian the United States and Israel must deal with, Powell's pitch at a so-called quartet meeting yesterday had limited prospects.
Unlike the United States, which depicts Arafat as an obstacle to peacemaking, other nations see him as the historic leader of the Palestinians. Considering the disagreement, and the fact that President George W. Bush's administration is holding back on peacemaking until the Palestinians find leaders who will fight terror, prospects for headway on a so-called road map for peacemaking remain slim.
Before the meeting of the quartet group that set out a road map designed to establish a Palestinian state in 2005, Powell was less optimistic about progress in peacemaking between Israel and the Palestinians. ``We believe firmly in the concept of the road map,'' he said, referring to the peace plan developed by the quartet - the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.
But Powell said, ``We are waiting for the Palestinian side to determine the makeup of its new government so that we have a partner we can work with.'' Bureau Report