Powell to explain Bush delay on Mideast plan

Powell

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell worked the phones Thursday, calling the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Britain and Russia to explain President Bush's delay in presenting his vision for the Middle East.

Powell told the foreign ministers the president postponed his announcement of a U.S. peace initiative because of the two suicide bombings in Jerusalem in the past two days, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Powell also urged the ministers to take action to stop the violence, he said.

"When we see Israel suffering these horrible bombings, when we see this kind of violence threatening once again to make progress more difficult, we're keeping in touch with the other players," Boucher said.

"It's not just a matter of people wanting to know what the president's going to say. It's a matter of other governments and other countries and responsible leaders everywhere to be out there trying to create some forward momentum and not just wait for the United States," he added.

Boucher said that Powell did not reveal to the ministers what Bush plans to say in his Mideast address. "At this point, what the secretary is talking to them about is the environment," he said.

"The president is very committed to moving forward, and we want everybody to work to try to make an environment possible where whatever the president says and whatever forward direction we try to lay out can actually work," he said.

A senior State Department official said that Powell told the ministers: "We're not going to be able to do this right away. There's people getting blown up. You can understand that with the kind of harm that the Israelis are suffering right now the environment is not receptive for someone to point to a different way forward. ...

"He's saying: 'Do what you can to denounce the violence, do what you can to put pressure on Arafat to do the right thing, do what you can vis-à-vis the groups to get the violence to stop so that we can indeed all look for a way forward and find one,'" the official said.

Powell also spoke to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana this week about the situation in the Middle East.