Powell backs sending U.S. monitors to Mideast

Powell has urged Israel and the Palestinians to exercise restraint.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday that the United States will not let recent Israeli-Palestinian violence derail U.S. special envoy Anthony Zinni's peace mission to the Mideast.

"He's going to stay in the region and fight his way through this," Powell said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "We're not going to allow acts of violence to stop Gen. Zinni from doing his work."

Zinni is scheduled to arrive Thursday in the Mideast to try to persuade the two sides to agree to security measures aimed at reducing violence.

More than 100 Israelis and Palestinians, including a number of children, were killed in a series of attacks and counterattacks in the last week. (Full story)

Powell, who said both sides must exercise self-restraint, also repeated a U.S. offer to send a small group of American monitors to help Israel and the Palestinian Authority work together.

"The United States is willing to send in some monitors to assist in watching the situation and giving some confidence to both sides and sort of helping keep the process moving," Powell said.

Powell said the Palestinian Authority has wanted international monitors for some time and that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was "quite comfortable" with a small number of U.S. observers.

He said Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat must take steps to fight terrorism for the peace process to be successful.

"All of this will bear no fruit whatsoever," Powell said, "if Chairman Arafat does not do everything in his power to bring the terrorists under control and to use his powerful voice as the leader of the Palestinian people to tell his people, 'This gets us nowhere. This kind of violence, this kind of terrorism of the kind we have seen in recent days does nothing but destroy our vision for a Palestinian state.' "