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Rice Says U.S. Ready to Help Palestinians
Date: Sun May 16, 3:03 PM ET
BERLIN - The United States is ready to be a partner in helping Palestinians build their own state, which would include "accountable political and economic institutions," national security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) said Sunday.
In a German television interview, Rice also said the abuse of inmates by American troops at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (news - web sites) had not undermined U.S. moral authority.
Rice dismissed a report in The New Yorker magazine that the U.S. government, including herself, had approved a secret plan that encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners to obtain intelligence about the insurgency.
"As far as we can tell, there's really nothing to the story," Rice said.
Rice's comments came before Monday talks with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, part of a renewed Bush administration effort to bring about Palestinian statehood next year.
"The institutions of statehood need to get started now," Rice said.
Rice said she would tell Qureia that the U.S. offer of partnership depends on the Palestinians building political and economic institutions that include security services controlled by an "empowered prime minister," who can use them "to fight terrorism."
"We are ready to be full partners with the Palestinians in doing that," she said. "We need movement from the Palestinians on those elements of the road map."
In her talks with Qureia, Rice is expected to build on Saturday talks in Jordan between the prime minister and Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites).
Powell urged Qureia to seize the opportunity for the dismantling of Israeli settlements in Gaza and some on the West Bank under a proposal offered by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites).
Qureia was noncommittal in his statements afterward.
Powell said Qureia, on whom the Bush administration has pinned much of its hopes for a reversal in lagging peace efforts, had agreed to look at whatever refinements Sharon makes in his proposal to evacuate all soldiers and the 7,500 Jewish settlers from the coastal strip following its rejection by hard-liners in his own Likud Party.
"We hope that in the meeting with Mrs. Rice we can resume a meaningful American-Palestinian dialogue in the hope of implementing the road map," Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat, in Berlin for the talks, told The Associated Press.
"We need to exert the maximum possible effort in order to stop the vicious cycle of violence and to give peace a chance."
Flying in from talks in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) on the next steps to bring stability to Iraq, Rice was to discuss the same theme with national security advisers from European nations at a private dinner in Berlin.
Bush administration officials said Rice would be focusing on the June 30 transfer of power to an interim Iraqi administration, the need for a new U.N. Security Council resolution, and increased international participation.
In the interview on ARD television, Rice said the handover of power from the U.S.-led occupation authority in six weeks was on track.
"It is absolutely critical that we keep our word to the Iraqi people that on June 30 they will receive sovereignty," she said. "Iraqis are every day regaining control over their affairs."
With the handover, "they will be fully sovereign in making their own decisions, and that is it should be," she said.
In addition to meeting with her British counterpart, she also will meet with national security advisers from other European nations. France and Germany opposed the U.S.-led war on Iraq but are now working closely with others to come up with a Security Council resolution endorsing the caretaker government that U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is trying to create.
Rice pledged a full inquiry into the prisoner abuse scandal.
"People will lose careers, people will be brought to justice," she said in a Sunday interview with the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel. "The president has promised there will be a full investigation and we'll make sure this is not more widespread."
The prisoner abuse investigation was "remarkably quick given that you need to pay attention to the rights of the accused," she told the paper.
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