U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit the Middle East next week to work on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the State Department announced Wednesday. “Next week, from March 3 to 7, Secretary Rice will be traveling to Israel and the Palestinian territories, as well as continuing on to attend the NATO ministerial” meeting in Brussels, deputy spokesman Tom Casey said. “In Israel and the Palestinian territories, she will meet with officials from both sides, and obviously this is part of the follow-up to the Annapolis process” for Israeli-Palestinian peace initiated last autumn by President George W. Bush, Casey told reporters. “I'm sure she'll get a good sense there from the parties as to the state of … their discussions and negotiations and cover a variety of other bilateral issues as well,” Casey said.
