U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Bahrain and Kuwait this month for discussions with Arab and other officials on Iraq and the Arab-Israeli peace process, the State Department said Wednesday. According to spokesman Sean McCormack, Rice will travel to Bahrain on April 21 to meet the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman. “I would expect they'd talk a lot about Iraq. They will talk about issues of interest in the region. I'm sure that they'll talk about the status of the Israeli-Palestinian discussion,” McCormack told reporters. Rice also will attend a previously announced international conference in Kuwait on April 22 to promote Iraq's security that involves Iran and other neighbors, McCormack said. As with earlier meetings of the conference held in Egypt and Turkey, the Kuwait meeting also will be attended by U.N. Security Council permanent members and other members of the Group of Eight industrialized nations.
