Clinton expected in Cairo in latest stop in Middle East tour

Nov 3, 2009, 10:52 GMT

Cairo - US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected in Cairo Tuesday as part of a Middle East tour to revive stalled Israeli-Palestinian talks, Egyptian diplomats said.

Clinton is scheduled to meet with her Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Abul Gheit and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to discuss Egypt's role as a broker between Israelis and Arabs and between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah, the diplomats told the German Press Agency dpa, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The top US diplomat is scheduled to meet with President Hosny Mubarak on Wednesday.

Clinton's visit comes after the United States on Saturday backed Israel's view that continued construction in Israeli settlements in the West Bank should not preclude peace talks.

The secretary of state, speaking after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, hailed Israel's 'unprecedented' concessions on Israeli construction in the West Bank.

'There has never been a precondition' on talks, she said. US President Barack Obama likewise called for Israeli 'restraint' on construction in West Bank settlements, rather than the 'freeze' he had previously supported.

'The result of Israel's intransigence and America's back-pedaling is that there is no hope of negotiations on the horizon,' Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' spokesman said Sunday.

Clinton is flying to Cairo from Morocco, where she took part in for the sixth Forum for the Future, a conference of foreign ministers from the Group of Eight industrialized nations with Arab civil-society activists and businessmen.

In that forum, she said that Israel's position on settlements 'falls far short' of the United States' call for a freeze on settlements in the West Bank.

She said that Abbas' moves to revive the peace process were 'also unprecedented,' and that Israel 'should reciprocate.'

'I think it's important to put this into context,' she told reporters in Morocco. 'The Obama administration's position on settlements is clear, unequivocal, it has not changed.'

The United States 'does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements,' she said.