Powell hints at Mideast peace progress

JERUSALEM - United States Secretary of State Colin Powell said last night that negotiations with Israelis and Palestinians were making progress, but hinted that the outcome could be something less than a mutually proclaimed ceasefire.

US officials have been working with Israeli and Palestinian delegations on separate ceasefire statements but the Palestinians are considered unlikely to issue theirs without progress on a full Israeli withdrawal from West Bank cities.

Powell said at the start of a meeting with a group of Palestinians in Jerusalem that his staff and the Palestinians were having "good conversations" and he looked forward to seeing Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in Ramallah today.

"We are making progress and I look forward to furthering that progress over the next 24 hours, but I don't want to get into specifics as to what I'll be able to achieve and not able to achieve.

"We're working on a plan."

Officials say both sides are working on statements that might not be billed as ceasefire declarations, but would commit both sides to work for peace without resorting to violence.

Powell will also hold another round of talks with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel.

US President George W. Bush, who hasn't spoken with Arafat, called Sharon yesterday. Sharon told Bush Israeli troops would pull out of Jenin and Nablus within a week.

Sharon, in a CNN interview, said Israeli forces would remain indefinitely in Ramallah and in Bethlehem until terrorists surrender.

Sharon said Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti will be tried in an Israeli court for "the murder of hundreds of Israelis, babies, children, women".

Barghouti, 42, is suspected of heading the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades which has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks on Israelis.

More reports emerged yesterday from journalists who have viewed the scenes of destruction in the Jenin refugee camp.

The Independent reported that a large residential area had been reduced to dust. Rubble had been shovelled by bulldozers into 9m piles. The reek of rotting human bodies under the debris was everywhere.

Around the central ruins, there were many hundreds of half-wrecked homes. Much of the camp was falling down. Walls were speckled and torn with bullet holes and shrapnel.

The Daily Telegraph said all but a few streets had been blown apart. In the Harat al-Hawashin area, the streets have "ceased to exist, with half of the area dipping into a large crater strewn with wreckage".

"Whole sides of cars have penetrated walls, scattering rubble over every patch of ground. Concrete has become mixed with earth, broken glass with blackened brick, four mattresses with 20mm cartridge cases, leaking gas cylinders with glinting shrapnel."

- AGENCIES, INDEPENDENT

Feature: Middle East

Map

History of conflict

UN: Information on the Question of Palestine

Israel's Permanent Mission to the UN

Palestine's Permanent Observer Mission to the UN

Middle East Daily

Arabic News

Arabic Media Internet Network

Jerusalem Post

Haaretz Daily

US Department of State - Middle East Peace Process