Powell: Details to end Ramallah siege soon

Thursday deadline for 'Madrid Quartet'

Powell and Fischer leave their meeting in Washington Monday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday he expects the final details of a plan to end the siege of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Ramallah compound to be worked out within the next 24 to 48 hours.

Under the plan, Palestinians in the compound wanted by Israel on terrorism charges would be moved to a detention facility and monitored by U.S. and British officials.

In return, Israel would end its monthlong siege of Arafat's compound and allow him to again move freely throughout the West Bank and Gaza.

Following a meeting in Washington with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, Powell said he was dispatching a State Department official to join the British advance team meeting with Israel and the Palestinians.

"Hopefully a transfer will take place that will then allow Chairman Arafat to have the flexibility needed for movement around the occupied territories so he can take up his responsibilities once again to end the violence, end terrorism and to ... re-create functioning structures within the Palestinian Authority," Powell said.

Israeli troops surrounded Arafat's compound shortly after they launched an offensive against Palestinian terrorists in West Bank towns in late March. The Israelis were responding to a wave of terror attacks against Israelis, including a deadly attack on a hotel on the first night of Passover.

Hoping for Bethlehem breakthrough

IN-DEPTH  CNN NewsPass Video    •  Palestinian politics  MORE STORIES   •  IDF: Arms workshops destroyed in Rafah  EXTRA INFORMATION   •  Gallery: Palestinian fatalities  RESOURCES   •  Victims of terror   •  TIME.com: Orchestrating a common ground

State Department officials said details that still need to be worked out include where the prisoners will be held, how long they will be held and how the U.S. and British monitors will verify their status.

The unarmed civilian monitors would be used to make sure the prisoners are not released. In the past, Israel and the United States have accused the Palestinians of arresting suspected terrorists only to let them go a short time later.

One possible jail under consideration is a British-built facility in Jericho, said a State Department official.

In addition to the standoff in Ramallah, an estimated 250 people, including Palestinian gunmen, Palestinian civilians and Christian clergy, are holed up in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, surrounded by Israeli forces.

Powell said he thinks "there is a solution" to the situation in Bethlehem.

"I don't know how close at hand it is. I have been hoping for a breakthrough over the last several days. But all of the elements are in place. There are still some difficult discussions to take place. But I think it will resolve in the near future," he said.

'Awkward discussion' if standoff not over

U.S. officials worry that unless these matters have been resolved before Thursday, they will overshadow the meeting in Washington of the so-called "Madrid Quartet" on the Middle East crisis.

The quartet gets its name from the meeting Powell held with representatives of the European Union, Russia and the United Nations earlier this month in Madrid, Spain.

After the meeting, the representatives issued a communique that called for an immediate halt to Israel's military action in the West Bank and the "maximum possible effort" by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to stop terrorism.

"The United States is in the driver's seat," Fischer said, "and we are fully backing all the efforts which have been brought forward by secretary of state or by the president and other representatives of the American diplomacy in the region and internationally."

Fischer said he was speaking on behalf of the European Union and that the U.S. efforts were being undertaken in close cooperation with EU member states.

The Bush administration hopes the meeting, which will include U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, can make progress on a couple of key issues -- the possibility of a regional or international Middle East peace conference and a proposal to give international monitors a larger role in the region, similar to what was done in the Balkans.

But if the standoffs in Ramallah and Bethlehem aren't resolved, "it'll be a pretty awkward discussion," one State Department official said.