Rice to hold new Jerusalem talks

Rice to hold new Jerusalem talks

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has arrived in Jerusalem - her eighth visit to the city this year - for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
Her visit comes ahead of a planned US-sponsored international conference aimed at injecting life into the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

But expectations of her visit and the conference are low across the region.

She is due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, then Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

What Condoleezza Rice wants on her visit she is pretty sure she is not going to get, BBC Middle East correspondent Katya Adler reports from Jerusalem.

She had hoped for a joint Israeli-Palestinian document outlining the principles by which a Palestinian state could eventually be established.

'Knotty discussions'

The two sides have been holding an intensive round of bilateral talks of late but Ms Rice admitted her aim for now was just to encourage Israelis and Palestinians to keep trying.


"I don't expect to reach an agreement on a document," she told reporters on her plane.

"They are going through some knotty discussions and I think those knotty discussions are going to continue for a while... I just want to help make sure that they are working in a straight line ahead."

The joint document is key ahead of the international peace conference originally planned for the end of this month, our correspondent adds.

But ongoing Israeli-Palestinian tensions and deep divisions internally between Palestinian factions mean across the Middle East people are sceptical as to the point of the meeting.

The US administration would like Arab states it views as moderate to attend but it is not yet sure that they will, our correspondent says