Palestinians, Meeting Powell, Urge Pullout
"The discussions will be continuing over the next couple of days, and then we're anxious to get some specific actions started, especially with respect to security," Secretary Powell said after meeting with Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians' chief negotiator; Abdel Razak Yehiyeh, the interior minister; and Maher Masri, the economic minister.

But Mr. Yehiyeh said that efforts to reorganize Palestinian security forces scattered in months of Israeli occupation would be limited as long as Israeli forces continued to keep Palestinian police officers from moving around or carrying weapons.

"Behind the curtain, we are doing something, slowly, gradually," Mr. Yehiyeh told a group at the Brookings Institution. He expressed doubt that the United States was "going to convince the Israelis, or make that pressure," to withdraw, but said, "I hope that."


http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/09/international/middleeast/09DIPL.htmlC.I.A. teams have been in Israel helping to train and reorganize Palestinian security forces in the hope that they could gradually resume control over areas that Israel has occupied. Recent efforts of Palestinian and Israeli officials to negotiate a phased withdrawal have foundered, but senior administration officials said there was hope such talks might yet succeed with American help.

Mr. Tenet is expected to dispatch a former Jerusalem C.I.A. station officer to help implement the plan. A visit by a higher-level official, like Mr. Tenet or Secretary Powell, has been put off indefinitely, in part because each would face the tricky question of whether to meet with Mr. Arafat. The current thinking is to send a lower-level official, like David Satterfield, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs.

The meetings this week illustrated how the complications of avoiding Mr. Arafat can seem almost comical. Mr. Erekat is a longtime Arafat friend and confidant and at a news conference here on Wednesday, he demanded: "Where do you think I come from — Mars? I am part of President Arafat's leadership."

After the meeting with Secretary Powell this afternoon, Mr. Erekat sounded a diplomatic note, saying that the secretary had assured his delegation of Mr. Bush's commitment to Palestinian statehood. "We really hope to see an action plan that will define the time lines, the mechanism for implementation, and the way stations that will take us toward this endgame," he said.

But Mr. Erekat, too, said the Israeli occupation was a barrier to progress. "Palestinian reform is Palestinian reform," he said. "It's done for Palestinian interests by Palestinian will, and it's not being dictated by anybody." He said the Israeli re-occupation of areas that are supposed to be legally under Palestinian control had created "the biggest prison in history."