Condoleezza Rice began her first visit as secretary of state to the heart of the Middle East conflict yesterday with Israelis and Palestinians already set on a new course of dialogue after four years of violence.
Both sides will hold a summit in Egypt tomorrow on reviving a US-backed peace "road map," making the mission of Washington's top diplomat less of an arm-twisting exercise and more of an affirmation of change after Yasser Arafat's death.
Criticized for too little involvement in Middle East peace efforts in his first term, US President George W. Bush sent Rice to the region to back up his pledge to press harder for an end to the conflict.
But she will not attend the summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh and signalled she preferred to see Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas make progress as free of foreign mediation as possible.
"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," Rice told reporters on the way to Ankara during an eight-day tour of Europe and the Middle East.
Rice planned to hold talks with Sharon in Jerusalem yesterday and see Abbas, whose election last month to succeed Arafat stirred international optimism, in the West Bank the next day.
She pledged to discuss ways for the sides to coordinate security and defuse crises when they "inevitably" occur.
One crisis was averted yesterday when negotiators hammering out terms for the summit agreed to defer a decision on how many Palestinian prisoners Israel will release as a goodwill gesture.
Under the deal, a joint Israeli-Palestinian committee will review the release roster after tomorrow's talks in what a Palestinian official called "a positive step forward."
Earlier yesterday, Rice attempted to reassure nervous Turkish leaders that Washington won't allow Iraqi Kurds to form a breakaway state.
Anti-US sentiments have been strong in Turkey since the start of the war in neighboring Iraq.
Rice met yesterday with Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. She saw Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday.
Turks worry the war in Iraq could lead to the disintegration of the country and the creation of a Kurdish state in the northern areas. That could embolden Kurds in southeastern Turkey, where the Turkish army has been battling Kurdish rebels since 1984.
Meanwhile, in an interview broadcast yesterday, Rice also reiterated US concerns about plans by the EU to lift a ban on arms sales to China , warning that such a move could upset the military balance in the region.
Washington and Brussels held different views on the maintenance of the embargo, imposed in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Rice told BBC television.
"Friends sometimes disagree, we have to be able to do that and try to work our way through," she said in an interview recorded on Friday, when she was in London.
"We have concerns about the lifting of the embargo because we have deep concerns about the military balance in East Asia," Rice said.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
NO CONFIDENCE MOTION? The premier said that being toppled by the legislature for defending the Constitution would be a democratic badge of honor for him Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday announced that the Cabinet would not countersign the amendments to the local revenue-sharing law passed by the Legislative Yuan last month. Cho said the decision not to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) was made in accordance with the Constitution. “The decision aims to safeguard our Constitution,” he said. The Constitution stipulates the president shall, in accordance with law, promulgate laws and issue mandates with the countersignature of the head of the Executive Yuan, or with the countersignatures of both the head of the Executive Yuan and ministers or
BACK TO WORK? Prosecutors said they are considering filing an appeal, while the Hsinchu City Government said it has applied for Ann Kao’s reinstatement as mayor The High Court yesterday found suspended Hsinchu mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) not guilty of embezzling assistant fees, reducing her sentence to six months in prison commutable to a fine from seven years and four months. The verdict acquitted Kao of the corruption charge, but found her guilty of causing a public official to commit document forgery. The High Prosecutors’ Office said it is reviewing the ruling and considering whether to file an appeal. The Taipei District Court in July last year sentenced Kao to seven years and four months in prison, along with a four-year deprivation of civil rights, for contravening the Anti-Corruption
RSS