By
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration should maintain an activist role in efforts toward peace in the Middle East, a Palestinian leader said yesterday.
In the highest-level meeting so far between a Palestinian envoy and a representative of the new administration, Planning Minister Nabil Shaath met with Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Shaath said afterward he gave Powell "our explanation of the situation - the very difficult situation of the Palestinian people," including economic and security problems and the violence that has killed more than 400 people in recent months, most of them Palestinians.
He said he also met with other officials and that they worked to prepare for the meeting scheduled Sunday between Powell and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Powell will travel to the Mideast for separate weekend meetings with Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon.
Asked what officials hoped to achieve with the Arafat-Powell meeting, Shaath said "a greater commitment by the United States to ... go back to the political process.
"We would like to see progress that will end the state of misery and siege of the Palestinian people and produce a political light at the end of the tunnel for the Palestinian people and the Israeli people," he said.
Arafat has said he expects the United States to help move the peace process forward and "protect it after all we have faced."
U.S. officials have said that they want the two sides to reduce the violence and that Powell would work on that during his trip, as well as on resuming peace talks.
The Palestinians insist that negotiations resume where they left off last month. Sharon has said he opposes concessions offered by his predecessor, Ehud Barak, and that the earlier Israeli proposals are off the table.
