Abbas: 'We have to work together'
Measures show 'peace is possible between the two sides'
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday kicked off a visit to Washington that will include his first meeting with President Bush since winning election in January.
CNN's John King sat down for an interview with Abbas, through a translator, ahead of his meetings with U.S. officials.
KING: You're having meetings with senior U.S. officials -- including the president, the vice president, the secretary of state. We are told that the president will announce several tens of millions of dollars in new direct aid to the Palestinian Authority.
In the past, as you well know, that aid has -- most of it has been run through other organizations because of questions of government bureaucracy, questions of corruption in the past from the U.S. side. How much money are we talking about, and what is the significance of this?
ABBAS: We don't know exactly the answer to this. We don't know if the president has decided this or not. But today, throughout the various meetings that we had with members of the Congress, as well as the meeting with the vice president, we gave them a specific message that we are asking that the American financial aid to be sent to the Palestinian [ministry of] finance.
The ministry of finance now enjoys a great deal of transparency and accountability. And we are asking that the American aid and the American money to go to the ministry of finance. We would listen to the president tomorrow when we meet with him, and we don't know yet about the amount or the mechanism, if this money will go to the ministry of finance or not.
KING: Another thing we understand that your delegation and you personally have been seeking is a letter from the president, including some assurances for the Palestinians. As you know, [Israeli] Prime Minister [Ariel] Sharon is very fond of quoting the letter he received from President Bush.
And we understand that you would like a letter that has very strong language from the U.S. administration raising concerns about Israeli settlements and also committing the U.S. government to a permanent Palestine with contiguous borders. Will you get that letter, sir?
ABBAS: All these issues that you referred to are part and parcel of the road map. The president expressed that through his vision of two states and the existence -- and the establishment of a Palestinian state -- that it is viable, and that it is independent. The president and Secretary [of State Condoleezza] Rice, both of them talked about the necessity to stop settlement activities.
I do not believe that there are difficulties in achieving those assurances and getting those assurances that you have referred to. The issue, also, is that it is related to Gaza withdrawal. We do not want the Gaza withdrawal to be first and last. We would like the Gaza withdrawal to lead into additional steps. We'd like to go straight after the Gaza withdrawal to the road map and to the issues of the permanent status phase and the permanent status agreement.
We will be asking the administration about these issues. And we believe that we will receive various assurances.
KING: But is it important for your personal credibility, sir, back home to leave with a letter with some of those assurances in writing so that you can go home and tell your people the United States is with us on this plan?
ABBAS: Absolutely. If we get this assurances, and we hope that we'll be able to get something that would reflect the credibility of what we say, and we will be in a position to say to the Palestinian people that the American president is committed, and here is the proof of his commitment. ...
KING: Prime Minister Sharon is also in the United States, as you know. And he gave a speech in which he has promised to release 400 more prisoners. But the Israeli government says it cannot do more, especially in terms of returning control of several more cities to the Palestinians.
In Mr. Sharon's view, he says that you have not done enough to crack down on terrorists and violence. And specifically, the Israeli government says that there are known terrorists at large in Jericho and other cities that you refuse to apprehend. How would you answer that?
ABBAS: There is an agreement between us and the Israelis to hand over five cities. So far, only Jericho and Tulkarem have been handed over to the Palestinian Authority. And I can say that we have a full and total security control on those. ...
In addition to that, we are asking the Israeli side to fulfill its obligations according to the Sharm al-Sheikh agreement [reached in Egypt in February], and the various articles in the Sharm al-Sheikh agreement, and hand over the remaining of the five towns or cities.
On the issue of political prisoners, yes, we did receive a commitment from the Israeli prime minister, as a part of Sharm al-Sheikh, to release 400 Palestinian prisoners.
This issue of political prisoners is much deeper and bigger than people imagine. We do have a joint committee that's supposed to look into the various criteria that are used in order to determine the number of prisoners that will be released. Unfortunately, this committee has not been activated yet, because the Israelis do not want to activate this committee.
We will continue to ask the Israelis. There are approximately 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. We would like all of them to be released. This is a very sensitive issue. It is a political issue. And it's a humanitarian issue. And we will continue to raise it.
KING: As we discuss all these details -- political prisoners, assistance, security cooperation -- you know full well from your experience, the bigger issue is simply trust. Can you have a trusting, working relationship with the leader of Israel? He said in that speech that if you do more, you "can be a partner for peace."
Implicit in that is that he does not view you as a partner just yet. Is he your partner for peace? Do you trust him?
ABBAS: I would like to say something that's very important. I deal with Prime Minister Sharon as the elected prime minister of the state of Israel. And on this basis, I deal with him.
We have to work together in order to build confidence jointly and together -- not only one side. ... If we build this confidence together, that will lead to other important steps.
Therefore, I think that the people on both sides should see these confidence-building measures happening in order to tell them that peace is possible between the two sides. We both have things to do.
KING: As you know, sir, the Israeli government says that you are not doing enough when it comes to Hamas. And they say Hamas is re-arming and building -- not even militias anymore, but building an army. And the Israelis believe the ultimate goal is to replace you and Fatah as the political leadership of the Palestinian people.
ABBAS: I don't think they should be concerned about us. This is an internal Palestinian issue. And we have achieved a ... calming down with an agreement among various factions on the Palestinian side, including Hamas.
This ... was achieved as a part of the Cairo agreement [with militant groups in March on a cease-fire with Israel]. We believe that this is a very important step. We have achieved that in four months. I don't think the Israeli government during the last four years was able to achieve a situation similar to this.
Regarding Hamas and others, we see them becoming more and more active participants in the election and in the political process. They have fought [for] spaces ... in the municipal elections. And they will participate in the upcoming legislative elections.
We believe that all parties should be a part of the political process. And there would be no rational reason for anyone to think of a confrontation between the various factions once they all become a part of the political process.
KING: There are reports quoting your senior aides that say those elections will be postponed four months from July. Is that, in fact, true? Will you postpone the elections? And some say you have to do that out of weakness.
ABBAS: Our decision until now [is] that elections will take place on July the 17th this year. But there are two important issues that we have to take into consideration. The first one, that the election committee, which is a nongovernmental organization that it is independent, they are saying that the time allowed and the time period that we have between now and the election is not enough in order to conduct the elections on time.
The second issue is the Palestinian legislative council is studying now the various amendments and modifications to the electoral law. If those two legal issues will impose themselves, then I will not be in a position to hold those elections on time. Anyway, these are subject to discussions. And we will know within a week.
KING: You mentioned earlier your concerns that Prime Minister Sharon will pull out of Gaza and then stop, not engage in a peace dialogue with you, not engage in trying to get back to the road map. As you know very well, the road map had some deadlines in it. One was a provisional Palestinian state by the end of the 2003. That, of course, did not happen.
Another deadline in the road map was for final status negotiations and for there to be a Palestine -- an independent country, the resolution of the very difficult final status -- by the end of this year. That, of course, cannot happen, barring a miracle.
Do you think the president of the United States, perhaps with the [Mideast] quartet, should reissue the road map with specific new dates so that there is pressure on both governments, your government and the Israeli government, to produce results?
ABBAS: When the Israeli prime minister made his decision about unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, we accepted that decision. But at the same time, we are saying that we have to reach some understandings about the next steps.
Peace is a process that has to be done bilaterally with two parties. They cannot ignore our side in this.
On the issue of a state with provisional borders, I do not believe that this would solve the problem, but it will probably further complicate this problem. I have been proposing and suggested that right now we should establish a back channel that can deal with issues of permanent status. And maybe that is a way to start dealing and discussing those issues.
Regarding the dates and the road map, if President Bush and the quartet would like to decide, realizing the road map with new dates, that would be OK with us, as long as those dates are not far down the road.
KING: There's a great deal of criticism from critics from time to time that President Bush is not hands-on enough, not actively involved enough. ... As you meet with the president here in Washington on this trip, does he need to do more?
ABBAS: What we really need from President Bush is to continue to affirm his positions. We feel that President Bush has credibility and [is] serious about everything that he says. And it is always useful to have reiteration of these commitment in order to push the process further ahead and in order to truly launch the peace process.
President Bush, as well as the quartet, are capable of doing this and pushing the process further.
