USA: Rice meets German FM, hopes to revive Middle East peace plans

Germany's foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier held talks with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Friday morning (February 2) in Washington D.C., ahead of the meeting of the quartet members. Rice said they had a chance to "discuss a number of bilateral issues as well as global issues including the situation with Iran and the concern of the international community for the nuclear program." The United States is seeking to get the quartet of Middle East peace brokers to find new ways to revive the stagnant Israeli-Palestinian peace process while continuing to isolate the Hamas-led government. Rice is expected to outline U.S. plans to other quartet members for a proposed meeting later this month among herself, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Steinmeier said he was optimistic about the Quartet meeting in an effort to help people in the region. "I am quite convinced that we are going to succeed during and in the course of today's Quartet meeting to send out a signal that on the one hand makes it very clear that the international community stands ready to do everything it can to help settle the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis," he told reporters/ The so-called Quartet, which is meeting in Washington at Rice's request, groups the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union and meets several times a year to discuss how to proceed on Israeli-Palestinian issues.

ITN Source | February 3, 2007

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