Interview on CNN's Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer
www.state.gov/secretary/rm/33169.htm
Secretary Colin L. Powell
Normandy, France
June 6, 2004
(12:05 p.m. EDT)
... WOLF: We only have a minute or two left, but the President, last night
when he met with Jacques Chirac, spoke of the Israeli-Palestinian problem
and he spoke about a two-state solution, Israel along Palestine, and he
spoke about Palestine being contiguous, a contiguous Palestine, the West
Bank and Gaza.

What exactly did he mean by that?

SECRETARY POWELL: What he meant by that is that in the West Bank you've got
to have a coherent, contiguous land which, joined with Palestine, would --
with Gaza, would constitute the state of Palestine. He was making the point
that you can't have a bunch of little Bantustans or the whole West Bank
chopped up into noncoherent, noncontiguous pieces, and say this is an
acceptable state.

The President wants the Palestinian people to have a state of their own,
which would include Gaza and significant chunks of the West Bank, with some
alignment of the armistice line, as he has said previously. But he is going
to be doing everything he can to help Mr. Sharon with his plan of evacuating
all the settlements in Gaza, beginning with the evacuation of settlements in
the West Bank, and then get back into the roadmap and help the Palestinian
people put an end to terrorism that comes out of Palestinian communities and
help them reform their political system and their security system so that
Israel can feel comfortable leaving Gaza and turning it over to Palestinian
control.

And we're working with the Egyptians, who will be helping with the security
in Gaza. So an opportunity is being presented to us, and the President fully
intends to take advantage of that opportunity.

...