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Rice begins new Mid-East mission | |
(about 2 hours later) | |
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is heading to the Middle East on her first visit since the creation of a Palestinian unity government. | |
Ms Rice first holds talks with Arab leaders in Egypt to spur them to revive a plan for a peace deal with Israel. | |
Washington hopes broader Arab-Israeli reconciliation could help foster an Israeli-Palestinian peace process. | |
Her mission comes as a top US diplomat warned that strife in Iraq could be a danger to the whole Middle East. | |
The outgoing US ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, said a sectarian divide was developing across the Middle East because of the bloodshed between Sunni and Shia Arabs in Iraq. | |
You need the energy and the help of moving forward on the Arab-Israel side, not at the end of the process, but earlier on in the process Condoleezza Rice | You need the energy and the help of moving forward on the Arab-Israel side, not at the end of the process, but earlier on in the process Condoleezza Rice |
"It's in everyone's interest...to come together to contain and reverse that tendency towards polarisation along sectarian lines. This could destabilise the entire region," Mr Khalilzad told the BBC. | |
Saudi plan | |
The BBC's Jonathan Beale, who is travelling with the secretary of state, says there is a new sense of urgency in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not least because Arab nations say it is essential to bringing about stability in Iraq and across the region. | |
In the Egyptian city of Aswan, Ms Rice will meet leaders from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - the so-called Arab Quartet of moderate US allies - officials said. | |
She will then hold talks with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank town of Ramallah and Israel's Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem before flying to Jordan for a meeting with King Abdullah II. | |
In order to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "you need the energy and the help of moving forward on the Arab-Israel side... earlier on in the process," Ms Rice said as she left Washington. | In order to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "you need the energy and the help of moving forward on the Arab-Israel side... earlier on in the process," Ms Rice said as she left Washington. |
The US is keen for Arab states, who meet at a summit in Saudi Arabia on 28 March, to revive a 2002 Saudi initiative to resolve the Arab-Israeli problem. | |
The plan offers Israel normalisation of ties with Arab states if it pulls out of all Arab land it occupied in 1967. | |
Israel rejected the plan outright after it was first proposed at an Arab summit in Beirut in 2002 but Mr Olmert is now giving it a guarded welcome. | |
Focus minds | |
Ms Rice's trip is her seventh to the region in eight months and so far she has little to show for her efforts, our correspondents says. | |
Washington has not recognised the Palestinian unity government and refuses to deal with those ministers who are members of the Islamic group Hamas, which regards as a terrorist group. | |
However, Ms Rice and her officials are continuing to talk to Mr Abbas and other moderates - a sign, according to our correspondent, that ideology is no longer the driving force for the Bush administration's foreign policy agenda. | |
Ms Rice will be aiming to focus minds on what she calls the political horizon of creating a peaceful Palestinian state. | |
The unity government was formed after Hamas - which has dominated the Palestinian cabinet since elections in January 2006 - agreed to share power with Mr Abbas's moderate Fatah faction. | The unity government was formed after Hamas - which has dominated the Palestinian cabinet since elections in January 2006 - agreed to share power with Mr Abbas's moderate Fatah faction. |
The deal followed several months of fighting between the two groups, which left more than 140 people dead. | The deal followed several months of fighting between the two groups, which left more than 140 people dead. |