Rice to visit Europe and Middle East

[leftchick]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1460518,00.html

Condoleezza Rice, the new US Secretary of State, is to start her tenure with a week-long visit to Europe and the Middle East.


The trip next week to Europe was widely expected but not the visit to the Middle East. It fulfills a promise she made to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during her nomination hearings that she would become personally involved in efforts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.

It will be a brief visit, fitted in between European stops, and will involve meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. There are no plans to go to Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia or Iraq.

The aim is to sound out the possibility of getting Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table. This week Rice met Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom at the White House and talked on the telephone to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader.