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.
DEFENSE: The first set of three NASAMS that were previously purchased is expected to be delivered by the end of this year and deployed near the capital, sources said Taiwan plans to procure 28 more sets of M-142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), as well as nine additional sets of National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), military sources said yesterday. Taiwan had previously purchased 29 HIMARS launchers from the US and received the first 11 last year. Once the planned purchases are completed and delivered, Taiwan would have 57 sets of HIMARS. The army has also increased the number of MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) purchased from 64 to 84, the sources added. Each HIMARS launch pod can carry six Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, capable of
Tropical Storm Podul strengthened into a typhoon at 8pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with a sea warning to be issued late last night or early this morning. As of 8pm, the typhoon was 1,020km east of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving west at 23kph. The storm carried maximum sustained winds of 119kph and gusts reaching 155kph, the CWA said. Based on the tropical storm’s trajectory, a land warning could be issued any time from midday today, it added. CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said Podul is a fast-moving storm that is forecast to bring its heaviest rainfall and strongest
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