Rice to brief PM on Mid-East tour

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US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is visiting London to brief Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett on her Middle Eastern tour.

It is understood Ms Rice will discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Her recent Middle East tour was aimed at winning support for US President George Bush's new Iraq strategy.

Ms Rice arrives after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, where she announced Middle East peace negotiators would meet in Washington.

'New way forward'

The summit, due to be held at the beginning of February, is expected to "prepare the ground for new talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders", the BBC has learned.

Her UK meeting with the Prime Minister and Ms Beckett comes after the eight Arab foreign ministers she spoke to during her tour issued a statement expressing support for President's Bush's new Iraq policy.

Ms Rice said there were concerns about whether the Iraqi government would take "an even-handed, non-sectarian path".

Foreign ministers of six Gulf Arab states, Egypt and Jordan, concerned that chaos in Iraq could spread to the entire region, expressed their backing for the deployment of more than 20,000 extra US troops in Iraq.

There will be four main areas covered in Ms Rice's London talks, according to British and American diplomats.

Iraq will be top of the agenda, and the Arab reaction to President Bush's "new way forward in Iraq", as US officials are now calling it.

US tough line

Reports from the region suggest "considerable scepticism".

Linked to that is the topic of Iran and the tough line President Bush has decided to take against the Iranian government.

The third topic, according to US diplomats, is Lebanon, and the need to shore up the faltering government of Prime Minister Sinoria.

A conference on Lebanon is planned to take place in Paris in the next few weeks.

However, the subject that is likely to dominate is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.