Interview by Mouaffaq Harb on Radio Sawa

SECRETARY POWELL: Good morning, Mouffaq. How are you?

MR. HARB: Good. Thank you, sir. The President said yesterday that peace requires new and different Palestinian leadership. Do we understand that from now on you will suspend any high-level contacts with the Palestinian leadership?

SECRETARY POWELL: We will remain in touch with the Palestinian leaders. As you know, we still have a chargé there, and we are in touch with different Palestinian leaders as recently as yesterday, before the President's speech as well as after.

But the President has made it clear, and we will make it clear, that we believe in order to go forward we really do need to see a fundamental transformation within the Palestinian government, within the Palestinian Authority. We know that work is ongoing with respect to transformation that includes writing of a new constitution, consideration of elections, and an understanding that what we have seen in recent years frankly has been no progress toward peace and intensification of terrorist activity which has not been brought under control.

The President is committed -- committed -- to finding a solution that will allow two states to exist, living in peace and harmony with one another. He is committed to doing everything he can for the Palestinian people to relieve their suffering and give them control over their own destiny and their own state. But he believes to move forward he needs to see more responsible leadership for the Palestinian people, and that is the reason for his speech, and also in his speech to hold out the promise for the Palestinian people of what is ahead if they take these steps: a state that could come into being within three years if we move quickly.

And I would call your attention to the President's sentence toward the end of the speech after he talked about the three-year timeline. He said, you know, "I and my government will work toward that goal." That's a positive commitment on the part of the President.

And I hope your listeners also take note of the requirements we will have as we move forward to end the occupation, end settlement activity, return revenues to the Palestinian government, and to make life better for the Palestinian people.

So I think it's a speech that is designed to move the process forward and is a responsible statement, and I hope it will be seen as such in the region.

MR. HARB: When was the turning point, or what was the major incident that made you reach that conclusion that the current Palestinian leadership is no longer a peace asset?

SECRETARY POWELL: You know, I have been the Secretary of State for 18 months, and I have worked very, very hard to try to get the peace process moving forward. And every initiative we took, everything we tried to do, kept crashing against the rocks of terror and violence. And I had many, many conversations with Palestinian leaders and with Chairman Arafat about this problem, imploring them to do more, not to say more but to do more.

And as we entered into the last two-month period where the violence was increasing, and there did not seem to be enough of an effort to bring it under control, I said to Chairman Arafat when I saw him in the Muqata two months ago when he was being surrounded by Israeli forces that it couldn't continue this way and a strategic choice had to be made to move in a new direction. And I pleaded with him to make that choice, but unfortunately we have not seen enough action from the current leadership of the Palestinian Authority that did anything to bring things under control, even within the reduced security assets that they have.

And after all of our work in the last two months -- consulting, resolving the situation at the Muqata, resolving the situation at the Church of the Nativity, getting the Israelis to at least pull back from where they were -- we still found that that was responded to with even more terrible acts of terrorism, and we did not think that the current leadership was doing enough and was sufficiently empowered to do enough to bring this under control. So we found that there was no other solution that we could see, other than have the international community stand by ready to assist, but it must begin with reform within the Palestinian leadership.

MR. HARB: Mr. Secretary, over the past few weeks, the President and yourself met with several Arab leaders, including Crown Prince Abdullah, King Abdallah of Jordan, and President Mubarak, who said that Chairman Arafat deserves another chance. Is there a disagreement between friendly Arab states and your assessment of the situation?

SECRETARY POWELL: I don't want to speak for any of the leaders, but in our discussions with all of them, we came to a collective judgment on our part here that they recognize that the current leadership was simply not getting the job done; there was no progress. And we sensed a frustration in the region with the current leadership, although they were perhaps not quite as ready we are to step forward and say it has to be changed, and I understand that. But there was enormous frustration.

And we also sensed that even within the Palestinian community there was a sense that the current leadership was not taking them anywhere because they are more deprived than ever. They are living under a level of restraint and occupation that is not allowing them to go to work, to get to health care facilities, and they're wondering what they were getting as a result of this leadership and what was being accomplished by terror action.

I recognize that this is a very complex situation, but I sensed that there was a level of dissatisfaction within the region over the current leadership as well, although within the region they probably would not have taken quite the steps that the President has taken. But we think we can explain this step to the leaders in the region and hope that they will understand the need for this kind of change.

MR. HARB: From your speech in Louisville to the President's statement yesterday, now we have a clear idea how the final solution may look like. Any idea about the road map? How are we going to get there?

SECRETARY POWELL: A number of people want to see the details: How do we get there? And there will be some very difficult steps ahead and very difficult negotiations ahead as you try to find an answer acceptable to both sides with respect to return of refugees or the final status of Jerusalem or borders and things of that nature. These are difficult issues, and I think it's a little unreasonable to expect us to -- or anyone right now -- to have a precise road map as to how you get there.

And that will all come in due course, but it is absolutely clear to me that the first stop on that road map has to be reformed leadership that can then bring the terror under control, condemn it totally, go after those organizations and individuals responsible for it, distribute power more broadly within the Palestinian leadership, so that we have more people to work with and greater accountability. That will be one of the first stops along the way, and there are other stops along the way, and that's why we proposed a state with provisional borders and other provisional aspects to it so that you don't have to wait for all the final settlement issues to be resolved.

But the road map will emerge as we get started, and I don't think we should linger too much on what are the details. The details don't make any difference if we never get started.

MR. HARB: Mr. Secretary, if there is any single step that the Israelis and Palestinians could each do to get this process going and move ahead to achieve the President's vision, what would that be -- a single step that each side could take?

SECRETARY POWELL: I don't know that there is any one single step. But to not duck your question, the most important thing right now is to end the terror attacks. There are organizations who are claiming credit for these attacks -- Hamas, the al-Aqsa Brigade, others of that ilk. They must be spoken out against. Every Palestinian leader must not only condemn them, but make sure they are receiving no support whatsoever.

We are calling on Arab nations, as the President said yesterday, to cease all support for these kinds of organizations. The Palestinian people should be told by their leaders that these kinds of activities and organizations will not move us in any positive direction.

So both sides should speak out against this kind of terror and violence, and if it can be brought under control, then I think both sides can begin to talk to one another. And the most important first step then is to get the violence down and restore security consultations and discussions between the two sides to keep the violence down.

Now, this doesn't mean total quiet. I'm not sure that will ever be achieved, and then we are not successful with that. But there certainly has to be something other than constant bombing going on if there's going to be any hope of moving forward.

MR. HARB: Mr. Secretary, what does Syria have to do to help achieve the President's vision?

SECRETARY POWELL: Syria, I think, as the President said yesterday, has to play a role in that they will ultimately be part of the comprehensive settlement to all of this. And what they have to do is foreswear terrorist activity, stop supporting those organizations that are committed to terrorist activity or actually conducting terrorist activity, very often based in Syria. So Syria does have a role to play, and I've had a number of discussions with the Syrian leadership about this.

Syria also has to do everything it can to keep from opening or allowing Hezbollah to open a second front on the northern border of Israel, which would just complicate the situation even further.

MR. HARB: Mr. Secretary, last question. Could you say something about the future of the Middle East peace conference?

SECRETARY POWELL: We know that there will be a need for a meeting or a conference in due course. I had hoped that we would have seen enough progress by now to schedule something early in the summer. But in light of the continuing bombings that were on a daily basis last week, with large loss of life, and the Israeli response, I need to take some time now to assess the situation, see if we can get things stabilized, and also measure the reaction to the President's speech and consult with members of the international community, as well as Arab leaders, before deciding how to move forward.

There's no question that sooner or later a meeting or a ministerial level conference will be required in order to pull these pieces together, but frankly we have been set back by the inability to achieve a reasonable level of quiet that will give people confidence to move forward and sit around a table and start to discuss issues related to security, to humanitarian support and economic development, as well as a political horizon.

MR. HARB: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for speaking to Radio Sawa.

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you very much. Bye-bye.