Powell meets with top Palestinian official

Powell testifies before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday

From Elise Labott
CNN State Department Producer

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Amid pressure from Congress to get tougher on the Palestinians for their role in terrorist attacks against Israel, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell hosted a top Palestinian official at the State Department Tuesday.

Powell met with Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, during Mazen's visit to Washington for medical treatment.

President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, also attended part of the meeting.

The session marked the highest level discussions between the United States and the Palestinians since Powell met with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat during a trip to the Middle East in February.

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State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said they had an "extensive discussion of all the current issues in the region, including the violence, the economic problems and the need to find a way back" to the negotiating table.

The discussions also centered around a draft report from an international commission that examined the past seven months of violence in the region.

The report, commissioned last year at the Sharm el Sheikh summit that tried to end violence in the region, was written by an independent team led by former senator and Northern Ireland envoy George Mitchell.

Among its findings, the report suggested that the Israelis halt settlement activity as a way to cool anger on the Palestinian side.

Boucher said Powell would be reviewing the responses to the draft report from both parties, as well as from United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Deadly clashes a backdrop to meeting

Boucher could not point to any breakthroughs produced at Tuesday's meeting, and said that no visit by Arafat to Washington had been scheduled. But Boucher did not rule out such a meeting in the future.

The session followed the deaths Monday of five Palestinian policemen by Israeli forces. The Palestinians were manning a roadside checkpoint in the West Bank.

A spokesman for the Israeli army called the attack an "offensive operation." A Palestinian security official on Monday called the attack unprovoked.

A State Department official told CNN that the Bush administration is "deeply concerned of the circumstances" of the incident.

"We have asked the Israelis for an explanation," the official said. "But we have yet to receive it."

On Tuesday, one Israeli settler and four Palestinians died in clashes in the West Bank and Gaza. The fighting came on the anniversary of the creation of Israel.

The United States has been hosting security talks between the two sides in the region aimed at encouraging cooperation to end the violence, although a meeting has not taken place for more than a week. One State Department official said there is "not a lot being done" by the two sides on security cooperation at the moment.

U.S.-Palestinian relationship questioned

Earlier Tuesday during testimony before a Senate Appropriations Committee, Powell said there were some "new tools on the table" worth examining.

"We need to pursue the opportunities that are provided by the Mitchell report and the Egyptian-Jordanian initiative," Powell said, referring to a cease-fire proposal submitted by Egypt and Jordan last month.

He did not rule out appointing a new envoy for the Middle East, but said right now it was "not timely."

Powell was pressed at the hearing by Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana, to reassess the U.S. relationship with the Palestinians. Citing a letter from 60 senators to President Bush that accused high-ranking Palestinian officials of planning terrorist attacks against Israel, Landrieu said it was time to "close the daylight" between the United States' and the Israeli position toward the Palestinians.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, asked whether Washington should consider stopping aid to the Palestinians and to Egypt, where he said the government-sponsored press is "spewing anti-Semitism at an all-time high."

"Is this kind of relationship worth the request of $2 billion?" he asked.

"It's hard to see how any of them (the Palestinians and Egyptians) in a visible way have tried to move the process in the right direction," he added.

Powell countered that the aid was in the U.S. national interest, and that Egypt was, in fact, doing its part to end the violence with its plan that was developed with Jordan.