DOHA, Sept 30 (AFP) - US Secretary of State Colin Powell said in an interview aired Thursday that the Palestinian uprising, which entered its fifth year this week, had done nothing for the Palestinians and urged them to put an end to it.
"What is the intifada in its five years of existence? What has it accomplished to the Palestinian people? Has it produced progress toward a Palestinian state? Has it defeated Israel on the battlefield?" Powell asked in remarks to Al-Jazeera television.
"So it is time to end this process. It is time to end the intifada," he said of the uprising against Israeli occupation which began after then Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the Al-Aqsa mosque compound on September 28, 2000.
Powell said US President George W. Bush "desperately" wanted to "help create a Palestinian state for the Palestinian people that will live side by side in peace with Israel."
This will "only come about when terror is ended. And the intifada has spawned terrorism and it has not achieved anything in these years, except the economy of the Palestinian communities has deteriorated, life in general has deteriorated, the Israelis have built fences to deal with this question, it has stopped us from being able to move forward with the many peace plans that we have put forward," he said.
At least 21 Palestinians and three Israelis were killed on Thursday alone in fierce fighting in the Gaza Strip, bringing the overall toll in four years to almost 4,400.