Rice to have more talks with Israeli, Palestinian leaders

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet with Israeli, Palestinian leaders to work out final details about their scheduled tripartite talks, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Tuesday.

Rice will meet separately with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas at his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah before the summit, Sean McCormack said.

"Our expectations are that this is an initial opportunity for these two leaders to start a discussion about those issues that would concern the framework of a possible Palestinian state," McCormack said.

It will be their first opportunity to have peace talks when Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations suspended in late 2000, the spokesman noted.

"We would hope that the Israelis and Palestinians would take advantage of this particular forum" to solve "most politically sensitive" questions of forming a Palestinian state, he said.

Olmert and Abbas are due to hold talks in the week of Feb. 19 during an expected visit by Rice to the region, Olmert spokeswoman Miri Eisin said.

Rice visited Israel and the Palestinian autonomous region in mid-January.

Source: Xinhua