Rice will head to Middle East next year

Dec 7, 2006, 22:02 GMT

Washington - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will travel to the Middle East earlier next year in an attempt to reinvigorate negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, the US State Department said Thursday.

Rice's travel plans were announced one day after a bipartisan panel recommended that Washington launch a broad diplomatic initiative in the Middle East and said that resolving the conflict in Iraq was linked to reaching a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack did not provide details on the timing of the trip, but said Rice would devote a 'tremendous' amount of time addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the coming months.

'I would expect that in the days, weeks, months and years ahead that you are going to see her devote a tremendous amount of energy and a tremendous amount of focus trying to create those conditions, where you can get the two parties together,' McCormack said.

The report released by the Baker-Hamilton commission, known as the Iraq Study Group, was largely focused on ways to address the deteriorating situation in Iraq, but said the Bush administration needed to spend more time on broader Middle East issues to shore up American interests and credibility.

McCormack rejected suggestions that the Bush administration has neglected the need to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

'There have been some advances in that cause, there have been some setbacks in that cause over the past several years,' McCormack said. 'But throughout all of those periods, both the highs and the lows, Secretary Rice has been very focused on this issue.'

President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair met Wednesday to strategize over Iraq but also spent much of their press conference discussing the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Blair said he would soon travel to the region to try to jump start negotiations, a mission Bush said he fully supported.

'It's important for us to advance the cause of two states living side by side in peace and helping both parties eliminate the obstacles that prevent an agreement from being reached,' Bush said.

Rice met Thursday with Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa. The Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by US former secretary of state James Baker III and former congressman Lee Hamilton, recommended that the Bush Adminstration organize a conference to include the Arab League or the Organization of the Islamic Conference to seek ways to stabilize Iraq.