Rice rebukes Israel for divisive building plans
By Susan Page and Richard Wolf, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON ? Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday rebuked Israeli officials for plans to expand a settlement in East Jerusalem, a step announced on the eve of a new round of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
The Israeli action "undermines confidence" needed to revive dormant peace talks, she said at an hour-long session with USA TODAY reporters and editors. She issued an "admonition" that both sides had an "obligation to be very careful about activities that undermine confidence."
Earlier in the day, she called Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to register U.S. objections to Israel's plan to build 307 housing units in Har Homa. Most of the city's Arabs live in East Jerusalem.
She said that "to her knowledge" Palestinian protests had not upset plans for today's opening session between Israelis and Palestinian leaders, arranged last month at the Middle East forum hosted by President Bush in Annapolis.
The White House is in the midst of preparations for Bush's first trip as president to Israel next month. Rice called it an opportunity for him to push "in a hands-on way" for a Mideast breakthrough in the final year of his tenure. The trip also aims to maintain Arab support for the talks.
The secretary of State was unflappable in a session that touched on topics from Iraq to Russia. "Democratic processes have taken a step backward" there, she said, as President Vladimir Putin settled the question of his successor with his endorsement Monday of Dmitry Medvedev.
Rice also said that the U.S. intelligence report released last week on Iran, concluding it had stopped its nuclear-weapons program in 2003, had complicated efforts to push for tougher sanctions against the regime. U.S. officials held a conference call on the issue Tuesday with France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China.
The report "had people step back and take a look" at the case for sanctions, she acknowledged. There were "tactical differences with Russia in particular, (and) with China, about timing, about the nature of any future sanctions."
