Rice to announce diplomatic mission
Rice announces diplomatic mission
Also In The News
|
Lilian Thuram appears to be lining up a move to Spanish giants Barcelona as Juventus' faint hopes of hanging onto the majority of their top players fade. |  |
Friday, 21, Jul 2006 04:25
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice is to travel to the Middle East to attempt to broker a peace deal between the state of Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hizbullah, according to media reports.
Ms Rice will seek to mollify Western concerns that the rest of the world is not standing by immobile while the Israeli-Lebanese conflict, which has so far claimed in excess of 340 lives, continues to rage.
Today's official announcement will come later on today from Ms Rice, bringing forward the trip which US government officials had previously said would take place some time next week.
In further talks, US President George Bush will meet British prime minister Tony Blair for talks on the matter next week, in circumstances more private than the unguarded remarks accidentally caught on a CCTV microphone during this week's G8 summit.
John Bolton, US ambassador to UN, said in a brief press conference that "this being the UN, there are a lot of papers around" but he could not reveal any responses to the proposals laid out by secretary general Kofi Annan yesterday. He said that Ms Rice would reveal the aims behind any such mission later today, although he refused to confirm that such a trip would take place.
In other developments, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) dropped leaflets over southern Lebanon advising civilians to vacate the area, before what many military observers believe could be an invasion of southern Lebanon.