NEW YORK, Sept 23 (AFP) - US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday urged Yasser Arafat to cede control of Palestinian security forces for the good of his people, warning that international aid could be jeopardized soon if he did not.
Powell, who has not met or spoken with Arafat since US President George W. Bush declared the veteran Palestinian leader persona non grata in 2002, made the unusual personal appeal a day after sponsors of the so-called road map for Middle East peace delivered a gloomy message about the plan's progress.
"The question is not for me," Powell told reporters at the State Department's Foreign Press Center here. "The question is for the Palestinian people and for chairman Arafat.
"Mr. Chairman, how long can you wait?" he asked. "How long can you stay in this position where the Palestinian people are suffering, where it's difficult to go forward toward the objectives of the road map, where it's difficult to achieve what you say is your dream, a state for the Palestinian people, when the whole international community is waiting to engage with you?"
Noting the somber assessment of the status of the road map from the international diplomatic quartet, of which Powell is a principal, the secretary of state hinted that growing impatience with Arafat's refusal to empower Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qurei could soon result in a reduction of aid to the Palestinian Authority.
"There is a weariness in the international community to continue to provide assistance that the Palestinian people desperately need unless we see some sort political reform and determination on the part of the Palestinian Authority to improve itself," he said.
He did not elaborate on the possible aid cuts but said that to prevent them, Arafat had to allow Qurei to control the security apparatus, work with Israel and put in place a structure to govern Gaza once Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon completes his plan to withdraw from the territory.
"So many opportunities lay before us if we could get that kind of empowered prime minister to work with Israel and the work with the international community," he said.
The comments came amid fresh violence in the Gaza Strip in which three Israeli soldiers and three Palestinians were killed during intense gun battles after a group of militants broke into a Jewish settlement there.
The prospect of Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip has failed to halt the cycle of Israeli-Palestinian violence and the death toll now stands at 4,335 since the outbreak of hostilities in September 2000.
Powell's remarks also followed a call from Bush to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday for world leaders to "withdraw all favor and support from any Palestinian ruler who fails his people and betrays their cause."
Powell said the quartet, which on Wednesday declared there had been "no significant progress" in implementing the year-old road map, remained committed to the plan and believed that Sharon's Gaza withdrawal proposal could provide the impetus for progress.
"We are convinced that proposals put forward by Prime Minister Sharon ... give us an opportunity to move forward and into the road map but it requires action on the part of the Palestinian Authority," he said.
The road map calls on both sides to implement a series of confidence-building steps, including disarming Palestinian militant groups and freezing Israeli settlement activity,
But its prime goal, the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005, now seems unrealistic amid persistent settlement activity by Israel in the occupied territories and attacks on civilian targets by Palestinian militant groups.
The quartet behind the road map comprises the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States.