Armitage says US awaits result of Palestinian election

Richard Armitage, the US Deputy Secretary of State, is well known for two major traits: his no-nonsense forth-rightness and his command of Middle Eastern issues and politics.

Last week he met with three Washington-based Arab journalists, including Gulf News, to discuss the window of opportunity for Middle East peace, the heightened tensions with Syria and the volatility of the situation in Iraq, including the elections and their likely outcome.

Below are excerpts:

Secretary Armitage, going to the peace process, Silvan Shalom, the Israeli Foreign Minister, was very critical of Mahmoud Abbas because he spoke of the same constants Arafat spoke of.
Well, I won't gainsay anything the Israeli Foreign Minister says. That is, in my view of what's going on with Abbas and others who are participating in the political process is their inner campaign - they're in a political campaign to try gain the favour of the Palestinian people.

We will await the outcome of that campaign and the judgment of the Palestinian people. Our view is, it looks for the first time in quite a while that there may be reason for some small amount of optimism. And I think it's very noteworthy that Mr Sharon is dead set on carrying out his extraction from Gaza, his disengagement from Gaza.

Last week Prime Minister Sharon said he reached an understanding with President Bush about not returning to the June 1967 borders, to keep all the Jerusalem and most of the settlement. Do you agree?
No. My understanding is, first of all, regarding the emerging leadership of the Palestinians, we're going to be careful not to do what we did last time, which is embrace too much. Our position has been clear: The agreements reached on the return of territories have to be ones that are reached between the two parties and not ones that we are going to agree upon. We can be helpful to try to get the parties together sooner, but the two parties themselves have to come to an agreement.

When do you expect a Palestinian state to be created, and will it be viable and contiguous?
It has to be viable. The word "viable" has to always be in the Palestinian state. [Contiguity] not necessarily, but there have to be arrangements. The point I think to take away is that that's something that will be decided by the two parties themselves. But the key point I want to leave with you is, you're not going to hear US officials talk about a Palestinian state without saying a "viable" Palestinian state.

When do you expect that to happen?
Before the end of this presidency? I certainly hope. The important point is if there were good will and meaningful negotiations on both sides, it could go as fast as the negotiators could take it.

On Syria, President Bush says all options are open to deal with Syria. Are you on a collision course with Syria because of differences over Iraq and UN Resolution 1559 on Lebanon?
Well, let's separate them out. First, on UN Security Council Resolution 1559, this is the will of the entire Security Council, and so not a collision course with the United States. On Iraq, we have made certain presentations to the Government of Syria, and they have done some of the things that were asked. We trust that they'll do a lot more.

On the Iraqi election, how do you expect it to be free and fair when there are allegations that millions of Iranians are going into Iraq to vote?
Let me make a different point. There are 1.5 million Iraqis living in Iran who will vote. There are 14 countries, including the United States, in which voting for Iraqi [expatriates] will be allowed. I can't judge an election is free and fair before it happens. I recognise the practical difficulties. Some were opposed to the, what's called, out-of-country voting. But the Iraqi Electoral Commission made this decision themselves, so it seems to me, if we have a sovereign government of Iraq, we ought to respect the decision made by the Iraqi Electoral Commission.

What about the Sunni vote?
The majority of the Sunni population lives in Baghdad and Mosul. So if we are making a suggestion that the majority of the Sunnis won't have access to voting and won't vote, I think you're barking up the wrong tree, because those two cities have the majority of the Sunnis. The international community will make a judgment of what is important: Two things: It's what the Iraqi people think that's most important, and second of all, you realise that this election on January 30 is not the end of the process; it's simply the beginning of the process.

What do you expect to happen after January 30?
Well, first of all, I expect that a majority of Sunnis will vote, and I was gratified to see that at the GCC Summit just completed in Bahrain, that one of the comments out of the summit was to the effect that urging Sunnis to participate as fully as possible, which I think was a very, very wise statement from the GCC Summit.

After that period of time, after February 1, I expect to see a Government of Iraq, which is: one, democratic, and two, might actually have a slightly Islamic cast to it. But it will not be a theocracy like Iran at all; it will have a very high percentage of secular participation.

The writer is an Arab journalist based in Washington