Cheney takes more direct role in Mideast peace efforts, ponders meeting with Arafat
By Tom Raum
Associated Press

JERUSALEM — Vice President Dick Cheney took a more direct role in Mideast peace efforts Monday, urging Israel to ease economic hardships suffered by innocent Palestinians and calling on Yasser Arafat to cease all Palestinian terrorism against Israel.

Cheney pondered a possible meeting with the Palestinian leader as both sides seemed to be inching toward a cease-fire.

Those close to the process said Arafat was eager for a meeting, and that the decision was up to the Americans.

Such a meeting could take place on Tuesday, before Cheney leaves for Turkey. It was not clear whether the vice president would come to Arafat’s West Bank headquarters of Ramallah, or meet him at some other location.

It would be the highest Bush administration contact with Arafat.

U.S. officials said much remained to be worked out before a meeting could take place. The logistics alone are daunting.

And it seemed unlikely to take place unless Cheney believed it could hasten a cease-fire, U.S. officials said.

The vice president, nearing the end of a 10-day, 11-nation tour of the Middle East, arrived in Israel Monday afternoon and met immediately with Anthony Zinni, President Bush’s special Mideast envoy.

The two shared a 45-minute car ride from the airport into Jerusalem, and later had a working dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Zinni has been shuttling back and forth between Sharon and Arafat in hopes of brokering a cease fire to end nearly 18 months of violence. But a truce has proved elusive.

Much mistrust remains between the two sides, and U.S. officials suggest a resolution will be neither quick nor easy.

There was optimism that the sides were again meeting, with a three-way security session held under Zinni’s oversight on Monday, and another one scheduled for Wednesday.

Still, in Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, “We continue to expect a complete withdrawal” to pre-September 2000 lines.

Cheney was greeted by Sharon at a ceremony in front of the prime minister’s office after Cheney’s car ride from the airport outside Tel Aviv.

“Both Israelis and Palestinians have suffered mightily,” Cheney said, standing alongside Sharon. “Both peoples deserve a better future.”

Cheney called on Arafat “to renounce once and for all the use of violence as a political weapon and to exert a one-hundred percent effort to stamp out terrorism.”

But in the spiraling cycle of Palestinian suicide bombings and increasingly harsh Israeli reprisals, Cheney had a message for Sharon as well. He said he would be talking to Sharon “about the steps that Israel can take to alleviate the devastating economic hardship being experienced by innocent Palestinian men, women and children.”

For his part, Sharon praised the United States for its efforts to root out terrorism. Terrorism against Israelis, Sharon said, “knows no mercy.”

“I have in the past declared that in order to achieve a real, just and durable peace, I would be willing to make painful compromises,” Sharon said.

“But we cannot make any compromise on the security of our citizens and their right to live without the threat of terrorism and violence.”

Cheney came to Israel from Kuwait, the final of nine Arab states he has visited. He carried a request from Arab leaders that he push the Israelis to allow Arafat to leave Palestinian areas to attend an Arab summit in Beirut, Lebanon, later this month.

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