Powell Puts Terror Fight Appeal to North Africa

International Herald Tribune 3dec03

(AP, AFP, NYT) — MARRAKESH, Morocco Colin Powell met with the king of Morocco and then headed to Algeria on Wednesday, a day after a senior Israeli official warned the U.S. secretary of state against meeting negotiators of a symbolic Middle East peace plan during his tour to drum up support for Washington's war on terrorism.

Powell was hoping to stiffen the resolve of North African countries - rattled by terror attacks - to continue to combat Islamic extremism. He also was seeking to mend fences with Europeans upset by the U.S. strategy in Iraq, with the message that American success there and in the broader fight against terrorism would require allies, partnerships and the cooperation of international organizations, including the United Nations and NATO.

Tunisia, where Powell began his five-nation, four-day tour Tuesday, and Morocco have both been the targets of attacks by Islamic extremists in the last two years. Algeria, the last North African stop of his trip, has been in the throes of a 12-year civil war pitting Muslim radicals against the secular regime.

Before his meeting with King Mohammed VI of Morocco, Powell said they would be discussing the conflict over the Western Sahara, where the Polisario Front has waged a long struggle for independence. Powell was also expected to make a pitch for protection of human rights as well as political and economic reform.

The United States has had close ties with Morocco for decades, and President George W. Bush praised the king last month for creating conditions for full participation of women in society. But Amnesty International and the International Federation of Human Rights have accused the government of engaging in torture and of carrying out secret detentions.

Powell took a similar message to Tunisia. Without directly mentioning criticism of Tunisia by human rights organizations and the State Department itself, Powell, the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the country in almost a decade, told journalists on Tuesday in Tunis that the country needed to focus on "political reform."

Following a meeting with the Tunisian president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Powell praised Tunisia for improvements in education, health and the emancipation of women.

Tunisia "has accomplished a lot, and it is for that reason that people are still expecting more to happen with respect to political reform," he said.

Powell said the United States and Tunisia had "an excellent partnership" in fighting terrorism and in seeking a settlement to the Middle East conflict. During the visit to Tunis, Powell said that he planned to meet in Brussels on Friday with the two men who negotiated the symbolic Middle East peace initiative known as the Geneva Accord. The initiative, announced Monday, was negotiated by Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli justice minister, and Yasser Abed Rabbo, a former Palestinian information minister.

Powell rejected Israeli criticism of his plan to meet with them. "I do not know why I or anyone else in the U.S. government should deny ourselves the opportunity to hear from others who are committed to peace and who have ideas," he said. He added that his interest in the plan "in no way undercuts our strong support for the state of Israel."

In Jerusalem earlier, in a rare Israeli criticism of the United States, a senior official said that it would be a mistake for Powell to meet the two politicians. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government has been fiercely critical of the Geneva Accord, calling it subversive, freelance diplomacy.

"I think he is making a mistake," Ehud Olmert, Israel's deputy prime minister, said of Powell in an interview on Israeli radio. "I think he is not helping the process. I think this is a wrong step by a representative of the American administration.'

The self-appointed Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, who held a signing ceremony Monday in Geneva, say the document could serve as a blueprint for formal talks between the two governments. The Bush administration says it remains committed to the official Middle East peace plan, known as the road map, which was introduced in June but quickly stalled. (AP, AFP, NYT)

'Very good allied support'

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, wrapping up a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, said that, despite attacks that had taken the lives of international coalition forces, he had received assurances from allied nations that they would not withdraw troops from Iraq, The New York Times reported from Brussels.

"We've got very good allied support in Iraq," he said on Tuesday in an interview with American correspondents.

Rumsfeld noted that 18 countries with troops in Iraq were NATO members or countries that were set to join the alliance next year.

He said he was encouraged by promises from defense ministers at the Brussels meeting that their forces would not be ordered home from Iraq in the face of violence on the ground.

source: http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=120089 3dec03