*EPF107 04/09/01
Transcript Excerpt: State Dept on Mideast, Bin Laden
(Powell call to Sharon, Arafat; Afghanistan) (1000)

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke by telephone with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat April 8 and encouraged them to continue bilateral security discussions that were begun last week.

Concerning an incident in which Israeli forces shot at the convoy carrying the Palestinian security officials back to Palestinian areas after security discussions, Boucher said Sharon made it clear that the shooting was not intentional.

Boucher said the U.S. government is ready to help facilitate future discussions between Israelis and Palestinians.

Concerning Afghanistan, the spokesman said the U.S. government continues to work with the United Nations and others to bring peace to Afghanistan. Boucher said the U.S. government continues to support U.N. resolutions that Afghanistan's Taliban regime send indicted terrorist Usama bin Laden to a country where he can be brought to justice for the accusations against him.

Following is an excerpt from the transcript of Boucher's April 9 briefing concerning the Middle East and Afghanistan:

(begin transcript excerpt)

Q: Mideast. Reportedly, Prime Minister Sharon has expressed to Secretary Powell his regrets for Israeli troops firing on the Palestinian negotiators last week. Can you confirm that? Are you asking for an apology? And do you have any comment on the cancellation of today's follow-up meeting?

MR. BOUCHER: I would have to check on that. I talked to the Secretary about his conversations over the weekend. He did talk to Prime Minister Sharon and Chairman Arafat over the weekend. I think he did it -- it was Sunday morning from his house that he talked to them both. He didn't mention anything like that, but I'll check with him and see if there was some expression of that.

Obviously we asked the Israeli Government to look into it, and we would expect them to communicate not only to us but to others whatever conclusions they had. At the time, Prime Minister Sharon made quite clear that it was not intentional; there was not an intention on the Israeli part to attack these people.

As far as the status of the discussions, I mentioned the Secretary had discussions over the weekend with both Prime Minister Sharon and Chairman Arafat to encourage the two sides to continue their bilateral security discussions that began last week. He said both parties were positive in their assessment of last week's meeting. They have agreed in principle to continuing those discussions, and we'll continue to work with the parties to try to see if we can help them do that.

Q: Nothing on today's -- the cancellation of today's meeting?

MR. BOUCHER: As I said, they have agreed in principle. We encourage them to have these meetings. We will continue to work with them to see if they can have the meetings. Or if they want us to do anything to help, we will.

Q: Let me just get this straight. The Israelis are saying that Prime Minister Sharon sent the Secretary a letter. You don't know if that's true?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't know if that's the case.

Q: Or if it's just -- if it -- you don't know if it has arrived yet or not?

MR. BOUCHER: That's right.

Q: When you said you were offering help if they needed it with the Secretary's discussions, do you mean that you would send another American delegate -- sort of discussions like you did before? Is that what you are considering?

MR. BOUCHER: We helped facilitate the discussions before with people from our Embassy. We're willing to do that. The emphasis on our part remains, though, on bilateral discussions between the parties, and we're willing to help facilitate those if we can.

Q: Well, were you ready to facilitate the one that was supposed to be today?

MR. BOUCHER: We're ready to facilitate every day.

Q: No, but I mean, were you -- was there supposed to be an American --

MR. BOUCHER: I'm not going to be into a specific meeting or how it was to be held. I think what we've said is we encouraged them to do this, they both agreed in principle, and we'll continue to work with them to try to make it happen.

Q: Richard, the commander of the opposition military fighting group in Afghanistan, Mr. Massoud, is asking the West's help to start fighting in Afghanistan and also drought and less killings, and asking that US should convince Pakistan to stop giving military aid to the radical Taliban Government. Do you have any comments, and then I'll have follow-ons.

MR. BOUCHER: I don't know that I have anything particular to say about that. I would say that we have continued to work with other governments. We've continued to work in a variety of ways with the United Nations and others to try to support international efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan. That remains very, very important to us, and we'll continue to do that.

Q: And last month, Taliban said that they will or they agree to hand over Usama bin Laden to Saudi Arabia or any third country, but now last week they said they will not hand over him to any country. Do you have any where this Usama bin Laden, the most wanted terrorist in the world today, where this case stands?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't remember seeing any statement where they indicated in any forthright manner that they were prepared to comply with the UN resolutions, so our position remains they need to indicate they will and then comply with the United Nations resolutions that require him to be sent to a place, to a country, where he can be brought to justice for the accusations against him.

(end transcript)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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