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Washington: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Israel and the West Bank this month to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace, making her first trip to the region since the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, a US official said on Friday.
Rice's July 16 to 20 trip to Ramallah, occupied Jerusalem and Accra, where she will discuss trade and economic issues with African officials, is her first visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories in four months.
"The secretary will visit [occupied] Jerusalem and Ramallah for meetings with officials from the Israeli and the Palestinian [National] Authority governments," the US official told reporters, adding that additional stops were possible.
The official said he could not confirm reports that the quartet of Middle East peace mediators - the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia - might meet in the region on July 16, saying no meeting was yet scheduled.
The official, who spoke on condition he not be identified because the trip has yet to be formally announced, said Rice hoped to "move forward" on Israeli-Palestinian peace.
In Accra, Rice will attend a forum gathering many of the 38 sub-Saharan African countries that receive trade benefits under the seven-year-old US African Growth and Opportunity Act.
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