By NNN-KUNA
Washington : US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will travel to the Middle East next week for the seventh time this year to prepare for a US-sponsored international summit tentatively planned for mid-November.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack announced the trip Wednesday, saying there would be “a lot of going back and forth among various parties in the region” in the coming weeks leading up to the US gathering, which reportedly will take place in Annapolis, Maryland, although US officials have yet to confirm a date or location.
Israeli and Palestinian leaders held a new round of talks on Wednesday in continuing efforts to bridge their major differences on issues surrounding the goal of creating a viable Palestinian state.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is pushing a summit agenda that includes final-status issues, including Palestinian territorial and border questions, and the right of return for Palestinians displaced during the creation of Israel in 1948. Israeli officials are seeking a much more limited agenda, and continue to talk about establishing only a framework for negotiations of final-status issues.
While recent signals have indicated Saudi Arabia might attend the US summit, Syrian President Bashar Assad this week ruled out Syrian participation unless issues important to Syria, including Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights, are on the table.
With less than 16 months remaining in the eight-year term of US President George W. Bush, most Mideast political analysts have concluded that the possibility is slim for achieving the long-stated Bush goal — two states, Palestine and Israel, living side by side in peace — before the end of the Bush presidency.