Rice returns to Mideast amid few signs of progress

By Arshad Mohammed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this weekend makes her fourth visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories since the November Annapolis peace conference with little to show for the U.S. effort.

Traveling ahead of President George W. Bush's May 13-18 trip to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Rice left Washington on Thursday and will see officials on both sides -- including in three-way sessions -- to assess a peace negotiation with no visible sign of progress.

U.S. officials and analysts played down expectations for her trip, which begins in London for meetings on Friday to discuss reviving the Palestinian economy, reining in Iran's nuclear program and supporting newly independent Kosovo.

She then travels to Jerusalem and the West Bank to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and their top aides on Saturday and Sunday.

"It is all behind the scenes stuff. She is not going to say much in public. She really is trying to get the two sides to deal with, and make progress on, the core political issues," said a senior U.S. official who asked not to be named.

Among other things, the official said Rice would gauge "how active she needs to be in presenting her own ideas to each side in order to move the process forward."

The Bush administration has so far been loathe to float its own proposals to help the two sides bridge their differences, preferring to leave them to work these out directly.

Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel now at the Brookings Institution think tank, was skeptical that the Bush administration was on the verge of offering its own ideas on how to craft a peace agreement to end the six-decade conflict.

"I see no indication of that. I think that their very clear attitude to this -- at least the president's view of it -- is that it's up to the parties to make the deal," Indyk said.

'SOUR MOOD'

He said bilateral talks about borders, Jewish settlements, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees could be making headway but that Abbas' dissatisfied air after meeting Bush in Washington last week suggested otherwise.

"Abu Mazen left here in a very sour mood -- and I think that is an indicator that things aren't going great," he said, referring to Abbas.

Indyk also said he found it "much more disturbing" that there has been little movement on the ground, saying Israel has repeatedly moved to expand settlements since the Annapolis, Maryland, peace talks and done little to remove significant roadblocks on the West Bank.

On the Palestinian side, it is unclear how much security forces under Abbas have been built up to take on militants.

In London, Rice will attend a meeting of the quartet of Middle East peace mediators -- the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- and a gathering of Palestinian donors.