U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is using her second overseas trip as the nation's top diplomat to assess peace prospects in the Middle East, reconnect with European allies and remind her Russian counterpart that U.S. efforts to rebuild relations with Moscow has its limits. The former first lady and former U.S. senator from New York is kicking off a weeklong journey by attending an international conference in Egypt where she will announce on Monday a U.S. government pledge of up to $900 million in humanitarian assistance for the rebuilding of the war-shaken Gaza Strip. Clinton also will visit Israel to underscore President Barack Obama's commitment to finding a «two-state solution» to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would establish a sovereign Palestinian state at peace with Israel. The plan was invoked first by Obama's predecessor, President George W. Bush. Among leaders Clinton would be expected to visit in Israel are Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, leader of the centrist Kadima Party, which won in the election one more seat in the Knesset parliament than Netanyahu's Likud. Netanyahu, who opposes moving forward in peace talks with the Palestinians, was asked to put together the next government because he has the support of a majority of the elected lawmakers. Clinton also will venture into the West Bank to meet with leaders of the Palestinian Authority, including Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and President Mahmoud Abbas. After focusing her first foreign trip on the Pacific Rim of Asia, Clinton is going to the Middle East and to Europe to try to build on what the Obama administration believes is early enthusiasm in those regions for changing the dynamic of relations with America after years of disconnect on many key issues. Daniel Fried, the assistant secretary of state for European affairs, said Friday the main theme of Clinton's visit to Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday will be «the reconnection of the United States to Europe and a sense of consolidating some of the enormous political goodwill on both sides of the Atlantic, and harnessing it to a common agenda _ not an American agenda but a common trans-Atlantic agenda.» On Friday Clinton is to meet in Geneva with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Lavrov was quoted by Russian news agencies on Friday as saying he expected the Geneva meeting to focus on arms control. Clinton is scheduled to wind up her trip with a stop in Ankara, Turkey, to discuss a range of topics with senior Turkish government officials, including the Obama review of its strategy for the war in Afghanistan.
