PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Four people were killed and nine were wounded in gunfire that first erupted within blocks of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Wednesday as he visited the National Palace to show American support for Haiti’s interim government.

The shootings appeared to have involved U.N. peacekeepers, Haitian police and an armed gang loyal to former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide – one of the factors Powell singled out as a source of the violence racking this impoverished nation.

“We have to disarm,” Powell said at a palace news conference shortly after bursts of crackling automatic gunfire rang out nearby for about 20 minutes. “We have to remove weapons from the hands of all parties who are not the government.”

Powell, who has announced his resignation, also called for a national political dialogue to lift Haiti out of the bloody crisis that has engulfed the nation for the past year.

“All of these different points of view, all of these strongly held feelings, different groups, different parties … can’t just keep going off on their own and wanting only their way,” Powell said at the end of his one-day visit to Haiti. “They have to find a way to compromise with each other as part of a national dialogue.”

Powell got a taste of Haiti’s often violent politics as shooting erupted near the palace between peacekeepers and police and a pro-Aristide gang known as RPK. At the time, he was meeting with President Boniface Alexandre.

Hospital officials said they counted four dead and nine wounded from various clashes, one of the highest daily death tolls in the outbreak of violence since late September that has left more than 90 dead.

Students at the Lycee Petion high school just blocks from the palace said stray bullets from a shootout between police and RPK gunmen wounded three students in one classroom.

Peacekeepers guarding the palace opened fire from both inside and outside the complex, according to palace security, but it was not clear whether shots were fired directly at the palace, Haiti’s White House.

Gunfire is common around the one-block palace complex because it is near two poor neighborhoods that are home to armed gangs loyal to Aristide.

Powell later met with Prime Minister Gerard Latortue and Cabinet ministers, leaders of civic groups that opposed Aristide, and Jean Claude Degrange, the former Aristide chief of staff and senior leader of his Lavalas Family Party.

Before flying back to Washington, Powell said that restoring security, reviving Haiti’s stagnant economy and paving the way for new elections next year were top priorities.

“The only outcome that will satisfy the international community and the United States … are free and fair elections,” he said.

The elections also “must be open to all to participate, including Lavalas, but there is no room for those who engage in violence,” Powell added.

While some Haitians had expected Powell to criticize Latortue’s government – accused by Lavalas of jailing hundreds of political opponents – he told the prime minister that Washington “remains committed to your effort. Much progress has been made under your leadership and we know much more needs to be done. We are with you all the way.”

Powell ended his visit by spending about half an hour with 11 young Haitians who are involved in the fight to combat AIDS by stressing abstinence and protection to other young folks.

U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said in Washington that Powell and his delegation heard the gunshots, but that they had no impact on his planned activities except for a change in a meeting room.

Aristide was ousted Feb. 29 amid a bloody revolt against his government, which was democratically elected but increasingly accused of corruption and paying loyalist gunmen known as chimeres, or monsters, to attack his political opponents.

A U.N. peacekeeping force deployed since the summer now stands at 4,790 troops and 1,270 police agents, but armed gangs of Aristide foes and supporters still control some Port-au-Prince neighborhoods and much of the countryside.

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