JERUSALEM, March 19 (UPI) -- U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney on Tuesday said he could return to the region as soon as the next few days for a possible meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Cheney later traveled to Turkey -- the 11th county on his current tour of the region to drum up support for a possible escalation of the war on terrorism to Iraq. However, Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said that Cheney "clearly that there will not be an operation against Iraq in the foreseeable future."
The U.S. vice president reportedly met with limited success on the primary reason for the trip. Often the host countries have said, much as a diplomat told United Press International that Turkey would have said, that the United States could use its bases for such an assault but could not count on troops from Turkey for the conflict.
As a gesture, Cheney has said $228 million will be granted for Turkey for troops in Afghanistan as they prepare for a larger role in peacekeeping duties in the country.
Ecevit said Cheney "rendered a great service by opening a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians."
The Cheney stop in Israel Monday and Tuesday included talks regarding conflicts in Israel and the Palestinian territories and coincided with the visit to the region of U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni. While the vice president talked with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Zinni was with Arafat.
The Palestinians said no one from the Palestinian Authority would meet with Cheney, who has followed the lead of President Bush in refusing to sit down with Arafat unless the PA leader was involved.
Cheney explained, "We wanted him (Arafat) to make an all-out effort to support an end to the violence before we agree to meet with him."
That means Cheney would sit down with Arafat if the Palestinian met the terms of a peace plan set out by CIA Director George Tenet.
The Tenet plan was negotiated in June 2001. It says Israel and the Palestinian Authority would immediately resume security cooperation, enforce "strict adherence" to a cease-fire and "move aggressively" to prevent attacks from their areas. The work plan was supposed to create the conditions for implementing the Mitchell recommendations.
Zinni, who gave Arafat a letter from Cheney restating the U.S. position, is to be the U.S. arbiter as to whether those conditions had been met. Cheney said the meeting with Arafat "could take place relatively soon ... possibly as early as next week."
"The key element is that Tenet must be implemented in the eyes of General Zinni ... in order for the meeting to take place," the vice president said.
At a news conference with Cheney, Sharon said Arafat would be allowed to travel next week to an Arab summit in Lebanon. However, Sharon added Arafat might not be allowed to return if he incited violence.
Sharon said: "If there will be harsh terror attacks here, during his absence, and if his appearance (in Beirut) will be a show of inciting speeches ... the Cabinet will convene and have to take a decision. I do not rule out any possibility."
The United States has been pressing both sides to implement the Tenet work plan and the subsequent Mitchell recommendations.
"General Zinni ... has laid out what is required to move forward and he has made clear that failure to fulfill the requirements of Tenet and Mitchell will torpedo this process. We will remain very actively engaged in this extremely important effort in the days and weeks ahead," Cheney said.
The Mitchell recommendations of May 2001 are named after former Senate Majority leader George Mitchell who headed a committee that included top European Union, Norwegian and Turkish personalities. It calls for an immediate, unconditional cessation of violence, a cooling off period followed by confidence-building measures such as an Israeli freeze on all settlement activity, and an eventual resumption of peace negotiations.
The vice president also said he expressed his appreciation that the Israeli army Monday night pulled out of the fully autonomous Palestinian areas in the West Bank and from the northern Gaza Strip, areas it seized in its latest sweep of cities and refugee camps.
Sharon said his government decided to make every effort to immediately launch the Tenet work plan, wants to implement the Mitchell recommendations and, "eventually we want to reach political negotiations that I hope, God willing, will eventually bring us peace."
So far there is no cease-fire and attacks have continued. An Israeli officer was killed and three soldiers were injured Tuesday in an attack in the Jordan Valley. The Israelis foiled several attacks in the Gaza Strip and in the Galilee, killing four militants and arresting others.
Cheney insisted, "The Tenet work plan requires 100 percent effort by Chairman Arafat to stop the violence and terror and I would expect the 100 percent effort to begin immediately."
Arafat should "speak to his own people personally" about ending violence and terrorism, issue clear instructions to his security services to enforce the ceasefire and closely follow up these efforts to ensure implementation, the vice president added.
Cheney and Sharon were very reserved in discussing the Iraqi situation. The vice president said they discussed "cooperation in the war against global terror and our shared concern about the spread of weapons of mass destruction."
He noted Iraq has chemical weapons, used biological weapons and is pursuing nuclear weapons, but would not say what the administration planned to do about it.
Sharon said, "We will support and back any American decision when it will come to phase B or any other phase in the struggle against terror," he said.
He dodged a question on how Israel would react to an Iraqi attack. During the 1991 Gulf War Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel.
"We discussed all those issues and I think that both sides know exactly if something like that will occur what we are going to do," the prime minister said.
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(Joshua Brilliant reported this story from Tel Aviv; Seva Ullman contributed from Ankara, Turkey.)
