Bush seeks Arab support for Mideast peace
KUWAIT CITY (AP) - January 11, 2008 Secretary of Rice Condoleezza Rice, traveling with Bush, said it
is unrealistic to expect Arab leaders to suddenly reach out to
Israel, their historic enemy.
"Some of this will happen over time," Rice told reporters
aboard Air Force One, en route to Kuwait. "There isn't going to be
a blinding flash in any of this, not on this trip, not on the next
trip. But this is a process that is moving forward."
"The Arab states took a big step in coming to Annapolis" where
Bush brought together Israeli and Palestinian and other officials
to launch the first peace negotiations in seven years, Rice said.
She added that as talks move forward between Israelis and
Palestinians, the "Arabs will do more and more."
Rice said Bush's trip to the region and his return to Israel in
May give both sides incentives to move ahead with the difficult
discussions. She said progress from the negotiations would come
slowly, and that the two sides would seem far apart at times.
Bush visited this tiny oil-rich nation his father fought a war
over and one of only two invited guests to skip the splashy Mideast
conference in Annapolis, Md., that Bush hosted for the new peace
negotiations. Arriving to a ceremonial red-carpet welcome, Bush
accepted a bouquet of flowers and greeted dignitaries as he began
the next chapter of his eight-day journey to the troubled region.
Bush was meeting Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, emir of the
wealthy nation that sits at the top of the Persian Gulf. Kuwait is
flanked by large and powerful neighbors Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran
to the east. While in Kuwait, Bush also was getting an update on
Iraq's security and political status from his top military
commander there, Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq,
Ryan Crocker.
Before the two began a private meeting, the Kuwaiti emir told
Bush he was delighted to have the U.S. president in Kuwait. "We
are equally delighted to see you working on issues that are very
important to all of us here," Sheik Sabah said.
"Your highness, it's my honor. Thank you sir," Bush replied.
The president wants Arab states to throw support to Abbas in his
internal fight with Palestinian militants and give him the regional
support necessary to sustain any peace deal he could work out with
Israel. Arabs came in force to Bush's Annapolis summit, and he had
flattered them with frequent references to an Arab draft for peace
that, like past U.S. efforts, did not stick.
Close Arab allies including Egypt and Saudi Arabia had urged
Bush to get more directly involved in Mideast peacemaking, saying
the Palestinian plight seeded other conflicts and poisoned public
opinion throughout the region. Those states and others have adopted
a wait-and-see attitude since Annapolis, and Bush's visit to the
region is partly meant to nudge them off the fence.
Earlier, in Tel Aviv, Bush said he would return to the Mideast
in May to mark ally Israel's 60th anniversary and to continue
pushing for a peace pact between Israel and the Palestinians. It
was an indication that hopes to crown his final year in office by
putting a personal stamp on peacemaking efforts.
"There's a good chance for peace and I want to help you," Bush
told Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Israeli President
Shimon Peres at the airport here, where he boarded Air Force One,
ending his visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
"Mr. Prime Minister and Mr. President, thank you very much for
your invitation to come back. I'm accepting it now," Bush said on
the tarmac.
During his two days of formal talks with Olmert, Peres and
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Bush laid out U.S.
expectations, saying that the two sides needed to get serious talks
started immediately. On his way to visit Sunni Arab allies, Bush
said he'd would ask them to reach out to the Jewish state.
"I carry with me a message of optimism about the possibilities
of a peace treaty," Bush said with the two Israeli leaders. "I
will share with them my thoughts about you and President Abbas and
the determination to work to see whether or not it's possible to
come up with a peace treaty."
The nascent peace talks haven't made much headway, with old
disputes about land and terrorism clouding the negotiators' early
meetings.
After two days immersed in the intense and arcane world of
Mideast peacemaking, Bush toured holy sites in northern Israel on
Friday, listening as robed clerics read him biblical passages about
Jesus' days of ministry there centuries ago.
Bush visited Capernaum, a site where Jesus is said to have
performed miracles. The president gazed across the Sea of Galilee
where Jesus is claimed to have walked on water. He toured the site
of an ancient synagogue and joked and held hands with nuns outside
the Church of the Beatitudes, a place where Jesus delivered his
famed "Sermon on the Mount."
Asked how it felt to walk in Jesus' footsteps, Bush replied
"Amazing experience."
During the visit, Bush was given a crystal statue inscribed with
words from the sermon, recounted in Matthew Chapter 5: "Blessed
are those who are peacemakers for they will be called children of
God."
Archbishop Elias Shakur, the Greek Catholic clergyman who showed
Bush around the site, said he asked him, "Did you come as a
politician, as a leader of state, or as a pilgrim?"
"I came as a pilgrim," Bush said, according to Shakur.
Also earlier, Bush became misty-eyed as he toured the Yad Vashem
Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. The president, who first visited
the memorial in 1998 when he was governor of Texas, was wearing a
yarmulke as he rekindled an eternal flame and placed a
red-white-and-blue wreath on a stone slab that covers ashes of
Holocaust victims taken from six extermination camps.
Bush called the memorial a "sobering reminder that evil exists
and a call that when we find evil we must resist it."
The peace effort is the centerpiece of Bush's eight-day tour,
but the balance of the trip is likely to focus as much on the
uncertain ambitions of Shiite Iran. Bush's Sunni allies are nervous
about the rise of Iran in their midst, and the threat its adherents
may one day pose to their authoritarian regimes, but also are
sometimes at odds with the United States over the best strategy to
address or confront Tehran.
Some Arab states are worried by a new U.S. intelligence estimate
downgrading the near-term threat that Iran will build nuclear
weapons. Although Bush and other U.S. officials have said Iran
remains a threat, allies with less powerful militaries fear that
the United States is taking itself out of a potential fight. Bush
says he wants to solve the Iran puzzle through diplomacy but takes
no options off the table.
In an interview broadcast Friday, Bush said there could well be
a long-term U.S. presence in Iraq, but it would be on the
invitation of the Iraqi government. Asked on NBC's "Today" show
whether that means U.S. troops would be in Iraq for at least
another 10 years, Bush said, "It could easily be that.
Absolutely."
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Associated Press Diplomatic Writer Anne Gearan and Associated
Press Writer Laurie Copans at the Sea of Galilee contributed to
this report.