Rice backs Israeli-Palestinian peace moves

ANKARA/JERUSALEM - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says Washington is ready to help Middle East peacemaking but the best outcome would be for Israelis and Palestinians to go on making progress on their own.

Criticised for too little involvement in Middle East peace efforts in his first term, US President George W. Bush has pledged to press harder to resolve the conflict in his next four years in office.

But a day before she visits Israel for the first time as Secretary of State, Rice said on Saturday: "The United States wants very much for this to be a process that is the parties' process, that is owned by the parties, by the regional states.

"I hope we would all get into a mind-set that says if the parties are able to continue to move on their own that's the very best outcome," she told reporters en route to Ankara during an eight-day tour of Europe and the Middle East.

Rice suggested Washington would play a more active role if peace efforts stuttered or US backing could clinch deals.

"When our involvement needs to take on a different character then we will do precisely that," said Rice.

Since the death of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, whom Bush and Israel rejected as an obstacle to peace, Israelis and Palestinians have taken conciliatory steps that have raised optimism for an end to over four years of conflict.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas, elected by Palestinians last month as Arafat's successor, will meet at a summit on Tuesday hosted by Egypt and attended by Jordan's King Abdullah.

Rice will meet Sharon and Abbas before the summit but leave the region before it starts.

Past US administrations have been criticised for either failing to use the superpower's influence to push peace moves or for too much involvement that was seen as heavy handed.

Rice's predecessor, Colin Powell, made only infrequent visits to the Middle East.

Palestinians are wary of US involvement because of what they saw as Bush's generally pro-Israeli stance in his first term when he endorsed the Jewish state's right to keep some lands seized in the 1967 Middle East war.

Bush has sought to bolster Abbas and on Wednesday announced $350 million ($493 million) in aid for the Palestinians.

Violence has dropped sharply amid Abbas's efforts to coax militants into a truce they say must be reciprocated by Israel. He has also deployed security forces in Gaza to curb militants.

- REUTERS