MIDDLE EAST:US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice won a Saudi pledge of support yesterday for a US-backed Middle East peace conference and began a visit to Israel and the West Bank with a call to seize new opportunities.
In talks in the region, Ms Rice has been trying to inject new momentum into peacemaking between Israel and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas's West Bank government after the violent takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas Islamists in June.
"Israel is not going to miss this opportunity. We are not going to miss the opportunity to promote a dialogue with Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian government," said Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni, with Ms Rice at her side.
But Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert later stressed concerns on two issues - that the Hamas Islamists who took over the Gaza Strip last month be kept "out of the game" and that any handover of control to Mr Abbas's forces in the occupied West Bank could only happen if Israel felt its own security was guaranteed.
Ms Livni said it was important to put "significant" issues on the table with the Palestinians but indicated the Israeli government was not yet ready to accept Mr Abbas's proposal to negotiate so-called final-status matters. "Sometimes it is not wise to put the most sensitive issues first," she said, when asked whether Israel was prepared to look at the most difficult issues such as future borders with a Palestinian state, Jerusalem and refugees.
Riyad al-Malki, the Palestinian information minister, said in Ramallah that the Palestinian government would ask Ms Rice "to put pressure on the Israeli side to respond to our security needs". Mr Malki defined those needs as a withdrawal of Israeli forces from positions around major West Bank cities and an expanded Israeli amnesty for wanted Palestinians.
Ms Rice said she aimed in her visits to Jerusalem and to Ramallah in the West Bank on Thursday, where she will meet Mr Abbas, to take advantage of "mutual opportunities" to advance a two-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
"This is a time to seize opportunities and it is a time to proceed in a prepared and careful way as one does not want to miss opportunities because of a lack of preparation," she said.
Israeli president Shimon Peres told her the US was leading Israel closer, "more than ever before, to the conclusive chapter of the negotiations with the Palestinians".
Ms Rice flew to Israel from Saudi Arabia, where foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said Riyadh welcomed Mr Bush's initiative to hold a Middle East peace conference later this year. No date or venue has been set.
"There is an international movement [ for peace] . . . Israel should respond to these pressures," Prince Saud said, without promising that Saudi Arabia would attend the conference.
Prince Saud, in another nod to the US, announced that Saudi Arabia was exploring the possibility of opening an embassy in Baghdad. - (Reuters)