Rice says time to seize opportunities for Mideast peace

JERUSALEM (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on the Middle East yesterday to seize the moment to jumpstart dormant peace talks as she sought to lay the groundwork for an international peace conference later this year.

"This is a time for opportunity, a time to seize opportunities," Rice said at a news conference with her Israeli counterpart, Tzipi Livni, shortly after arriving in Israel on the latest leg of a regional tour.

Washington's top diplomat flew in from Saudi Arabia, continuing a trip aimed at countering what Washington sees as a growing "destabilising" influence of Iran and shoring up support for US policies in Iraq and the Middle East.

In her first trip to the region in four months -- and the first since Islamist Hamas took control of Gaza -- Rice huddled with other senior Israeli officials and was to wrap up her day at a dinner with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

On Thursday she will meet Washington-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and prime minister Salam Fayyad in the occupied West Bank, amid US and Israeli efforts to bolster the moderate Palestinian leaders and isolate radical Hamas in Gaza.

Rice will seek to capitalise on the flurry of diplomatic activity that followed Hamas's Gaza takeover to try and nudge Israelis and Palestinians to restart peace talks that have been stalled for more than six years.

She arrived in Israel having secured support from Saudi Arabia for an international peace conference called for by US President George W. Bush to be held in the coming months, saying she was "encouraged by ideas from all parties" during her tour.

Washington and Israel have sought to bolster Abbas after Hamas overran forces loyal to him in Gaza on June 15. The bloody takeover led Abbas to fire the unity cabinet led by Western-shunned Hamas and replace it with one headed by Fayyad, a US-educated economist widely respected abroad.

To that end, Rice is likely to pressure Israel to ease the severe restrictions on the freedom of movement of Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank, Israeli officials said.

Livni vowed that the Jewish state "is not going to miss this opportunity to promote a dialogue" with Abbas and his new government.

But she cautioned that it was "not wise to put the most sensitive issues first," referring to the most thorny problems between the two sides such as the status of Jerusalem and refugees.

Rice has said a number of initiatives, including an Arab League peace plan revived at Saudi Arabia's initiative, needed to be pulled together ahead of the peace conference.

It was a "time to proceed in a prepared and careful way because one does not want to miss opportunities by lack of preparation," she said.

The US official said the conference is likely to take place in mid-October at the earliest, after the end of Jewish high holidays and Muslim Ramadan.

Washington's top diplomat scored a minor victory when Saudi Arabia -- which does not have relations with Israel -- said it was keen on attending the conference.

"Should we get an invitation to attend the conference we will look at it very closely and very hard," Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said at a news conference with Rice in Jeddah.

Saudi Arabia will make sure it attends if it receives an invitation, he added, according to the official SPA news agency.