Rice vows personal effort on Mideast peace

WASHINGTON - United States Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday promised enormous personal effort to exploit a moment of opportunity in Middle East peace, a sign Washington would resume active high-level diplomacy there.

For most of his first term, President George W Bush kept a distance from Israeli-Palestinian peace-making, but Rice said that with the recent election of a new Palestinian leader, "we have reached a moment of opportunity and we must seize it."

"I look forward to personally working with the Palestinian and Israeli leaders, and bringing American diplomacy to bear on this difficult but crucial issue," she told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is expected to approve her nomination on Wednesday.

Without defining what Bush's role might be in the process, she said there would have to be "engagement at all levels ... (and) I expect myself to spend an enormous amount of effort on this activity."

However, she stressed that her efforts could not substitute for Israelis and Palestinians and the responsibilities only they can fulfil to make peace, and a Palestinian state, a reality.

Palestinians hoped for a quick return to negotiations after Mahmoud Abbas was elected on Jan 9 to succeed the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

However, top US officials initially said the Mideast peace process could not be rushed, suggesting they would wait to see how the new Palestinian government evolved and whether the two sides would begin to carry out the reciprocal steps in the US-backed "road map" peace plan.

In her testimony, Rice urged Israel to "do its part to improve the conditions under which Palestinians live and seek to build a better future."

She also said: "The Arab states have responsibilities here too, and they can't incite violence against Israel on one hand and call for peace with a two-state solution on the other."

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in recent days has cut ties with Abbas, a moderate, because of his failure to rein in Palestinian militants carrying out attacks against Israel.

Abbas on Monday ordered security forces to prevent attacks on Israel by militants defying his calls for calm.

Rice called this a "time of responsibility."

"The new Palestinian leadership in word is devoted to fighting terror; it needs to be devoted in deed to fighting terror," she said, adding that the administration has pressed Palestinians hard to rein in the militants.

Rice did not rule out appointing a special Mideast envoy, as some have proposed, but said the question is whether such an appointment is appropriate at this time.

- REUTERS