Cease-fire talks still underway

JERUSALEM -- Secretary of State Colin Powell is trying to expand Israel's withdrawal on the West Bank and persuade Yasser Arafat to commit to some version of a cease-fire -- limited results as he concludes a mission aimed at halting 18 months of escalating violence. \n"I think we are making progress and are looking forward to making more progress in the next 24 hours," Powell said Tuesday. \nBut Israeli forces moved into a West Bank town and three villages near Jerusalem and imposed curfews as part of a high security alert timed to Israel's Independence Day. \nPalestinians condemned the new incursions. But Powell has tempered his public calls for a total and quick military departure now that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has announced a pullout from all but Ramallah and Bethlehem within a week. \nIn any event, Israeli officials said the withdrawal would not preclude efforts to arrest Fuad Shobaki, whom they accused of overseeing attacks on Israel and the abortive shipment of 50 tons of Iranian weapons to the Palestinians. \nAnd, the officials said on condition of anonymity, they remained determined to arrest the plotters of the assassination last October of Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi. \nPowell will have a second and final session with the Arafat on Wednesday at his rocket-battered Ramallah headquarters, where he's been confined by Israeli troops for nearly three weeks. \nIn his meeting with Arafat, and in a one-hour session Tuesday with Sharon at the prime minister's home in midtown Jerusalem, Powell also was taking up the international peace conference that is quickly taking shape. \nHe would like to wind up the trip with fresh assurances from Arafat to reduce violence. But Powell is falling short of the formal cease-fire he left Washington in search of 10 days ago. \nStill, the peace conference would implement Powell's declared search for an accelerated political process, one that President Bush and Powell have said must produce a Palestinian state. \nBush also had insisted on a quick withdrawal of Israeli forces, echoing European and Arab demands. \nSharon said the peace conference probably would be held in June in the United States. A site has not been selected. A potential problem is that Sharon wants to screen out Arafat but attend himself, even though the tentative plan is to hold it at the foreign ministers level. \nSharon's spokesman, Raanan Gissin, said a peace conference was not a certainty.\n"The Americans think this is very important," he said. \nIsrael, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and perhaps Morocco were possible participants, Sharon told Israel TV. An alternative is to have the Arab League represent the Arabs and possibly invite the European Union and Russia. The United States would be represented as well.The topic may come up when Powell stops on his way home Wednesday in Cairo, Egypt, for a meeting with President Hosni Mubarak. \nWhile Powell has steered clear of a formal cease-fire that would be considered broken with every hostile incident, he said he was working on something like it without a "specific term." In his last Mideast mission nearly a year ago, Powell called for seven days of quiet before getting back to the negotiating table -- a requirement that proved impossible. \nThe focus of the last stage of Powell's trip is how to stop the fighting and how to pin down Israeli-Palestinian security arrangements to maintain calm in the West Bank, Israeli officials said. \nIsrael wants assurances from the Palestinians they would assert control, but the Palestinians say the Israeli incursion has crippled their security apparatus. Israel's response is that there are enough Palestinian security forces to get the job done.