US/MIDDLE EAST: In the first signs of renewed US involvement in the stalled Mideast peace process following the death of Yasser Arafat, a senior State Department official yesterday visited Israel and the Occupied Territories ahead of a visit today by outgoing Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell. Peter Hirschberg reports from Jerusalem.
On the agenda are elections for a new head of the Palestinian Authority, a procedure that is seen as a vital step in affording legitimacy to any leader that replaces Mr Arafat. "I am here to stress strong American support for the Palestinian election," said Assistant Secretary of State, Mr William Burns, after meeting officials in Ramallah.
While Palestinian officials hope the talks with Mr Powell will smooth the way for a renewal of ties with the US in a post-Arafat era - under President Bush the Americans essentially boycotted the Palestinian leader - their immediate focus is elections, which they hope to hold by January 9th. They want the Israeli army out of their towns and cities during the election for fear this will disrupt the campaign, and Mr Powell is expected to push Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon on the matter. He is expected to ask Israel to remove the many roadblocks sprinkled across the West Bank and which impede Palestinian movement, to withdraw its troops from major urban areas, and to limit military actions, especially assassinations of militants.
Palestinian leaders fear voters would take a negative view of any candidate who agreed to stand while Israeli troops still occupied major cities. "If elections are held under occupation, people will say the candidate rode in on top of an Israeli tank," said Prime Minister Mr Ahmed Qurei.
The Americans are hoping that a new Palestinian leadership - legitimised by elections in the territories - along with Mr Sharon's plan to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip and part of the northern West Bank by next year, will help breathe new life into the moribund road map plan for peace.
Mr Sharon is well aware of these hopes and has been trying to appear flexible in the wake of Mr Arafat's death, not wanting to be perceived by the international community as an obstacle to possible change in the Palestinian Authority. He has stopped demanding the immediate dismantling of armed Palestinian groups as a condition for contact with the Palestinians and is instead insisting on a halt to incitement. This will spare a new Palestinian leadership from clashes with militants, at least in the near future.
Palestinian Minister Mr Saeb Erekat said efforts were under way to try and coordinate election arrangements with Israel and that the Americans were acting as a mediator.
"We are expressing a readiness to meet with the Israeli side in order to coordinate with them immediately on the administrative and security arrangements," he said.
Until the elections, though, the only talks will be about the elections themselves, certainly not about any of the issues at the heart of the conflict.