Rice to visit Middle East next week
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit the Middle East next week, a spokesman said on Friday as the Bush administration continued efforts for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal this year.
Rice will travel to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Sunday, a statement by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
"There, she will meet with senior Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials to discuss a wide range of bilateral and regional issues," he said.
These would include "ongoing efforts to create positive and lasting peace in the region and progress towards the shared goal of a peace agreement in 2008," McCormack said.
He provided no details of her schedule or meetings, and did not say how long Rice would remain in the region.
The United States has said it hopes to conclude a framework peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians before President George W. Bush leaves office in January. But the talks have stumbled on disputes over Israeli settlement building and the future of Jerusalem.
On Thursday, Israel's chief negotiator, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, said a Palestinian uprising could reignite if the international community piled on too much pressure on the sides to rush into an agreement by year's end.
A State Department spokesman, responding to Livni's comments on Friday, said the Americans would not push the parties beyond where they were willing to go.
"This is a difficult process, and we still believe that an agreement can be reached by the end of the year," the spokesman, Robert Wood, said. "But there's no attempt by the U.S. government to push the parties beyond where they believe they can go at this point."
He said both sides had committed to working out an agreement. "We will be there to support them and they can count on that," Wood said.
Rice last held meetings with Israel and Palestinian officials in Washington on July 30, the same day Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, hit by a corruption scandal, said he would step down after his party chooses a new leader in September.
