U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday vowed to exert maximum effort in her quest for a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement by January 20, when President George W. Bush leaves office. While it is close to “the end of this administration, I still believe that we must make every effort in the time that we have to lay this foundation for peace,” Rice told a Washington conference on Palestinian business and investment. “That still means that we must do everything that we can with the negotiating partners to get the negotiating partners to get to the Annapolis solution, " Rice said, referring to the U.S.-hosted peace conference last year that launched the first serious Palestinian-Israeli peace talks in seven years. “That would mean to find an agreement by these parties by the end of the year, " Rice told the conference sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “There is a hard road ahead, but if we do not try, we will certainly not succeed.” --MORE
