Rice arrives in Israel in fresh effort to revive peace process

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Saturday landed in Israel's Ben-Gurion International Airport to kick off her Middle East and Europe tour, local daily Jerusalem Post reported.

The report said that Rice is expected to meet with a number of senior Israeli officials including Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz.

Meanwhile, pan-Arabic television channel al-Jazeera reported that Rice would visit the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

But Rice stressed that she would not meet any Hamas-led government's officials, al-Jazeera said.

Rice was supposed to exchanged views with the Israeli and Palestinian officials to bridge the gap between the two sides in a bid to revive the stalled Mideast peace process.

It was earlier reported that Rice would come with a peace plan or proposal to establish a Palestinian statehood with temporary borders. But Rice denied the reports on her way to the region, saying that she did not come with any specific peace plans.

Palestinians are skeptical of the establishment of a Palestinian state with temporary borders, fearing that the temporary borders would become the permanent one.

Rice left the United States on Friday to start her whirlwind tour in the Middle East and Europe, which would also take her to Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Germany and Britain.

Source: Xinhua