Rice seeks Egypt's help on Gaza

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, her credibility at stake, urged Israelis and Palestinians on Tuesday to quickly resume U.S.-sponsored peace talks suspended over Israel's offensive in Hamas-run Gaza.

"Negotiations ought to resume as soon as possible," said Rice, who was in Cairo on the first leg of a brief Middle East trip aimed at salvaging the U.S-brokered peace process. She will also visit Jerusalem and the West Bank.

"I am going to have discussions with the parties about how we try to keep this process going, given that obviously there are going to be spoilers."

Rice's first meeting in Cairo was with Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, followed by talks with President Hosni Mubarak.

Saying Israel had the right to defend itself, Rice told reporters Hamas was trying to wreck Palestinian statehood talks between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who cut off negotiations last weekend.

"Hamas is doing what might be expected, which is using rocket attacks on Israel to arrest a peace process in which they have nothing to gain," Rice said.

She said any lengthy suspension of talks handed victory to Hamas, which seized control of Gaza last June and whose stepped up rocket attacks into Israel preceded the latest offensive.

Experts say Rice faces an uphill battle to revive the peace talks - launched to much fanfare last November, in Annapolis, Maryland with the goal of getting a Palestinian statehood deal before the Bush administration's term ends in January 2009.

"I continue to believe that they can get to a deal by the end of the year if everybody has got the will to do it," said Rice, adding implementation of a deal would take a lot longer.

She dismissed sceptics who have predicted the Annapolis process will fail without including Hamas and that U.S. attempts to isolate Gaza will ultimately backfire.

"It is going to have its ups and downs. There will be good days and bad days and even good weeks and bad weeks. I am going to talk to the parties about staying focused on what needs to be done here," she said.

NO CEASE-FIRE CALL

While calling for an end to violence that has killed almost 120 Palestinians - around half of them civilians - Rice did not specifically demand a cease-fire.

The omission may anger some Arab allies who could see it as giving Israel a green light for more military action in Gaza.

Israeli troops pulled out of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Monday after international appeals, but a senior official said it was a "two-day interval" during Rice's visit and Olmert said Israel would not tolerate attacks.

Washington's role as an honest broker is under the spotlight in the current Gaza conflict because of its close ties to Israel. Rice came under heavy criticism during the 2006 Israeli-Lebanon war for not demanding a cease-fire.

Egypt has been looking at how to get one between Hamas and Israel but Rice declined to use the word cease-fire, which would involve directly negotiating with Hamas, a group Washington brands as terrorist and refuses to deal with.

"Call it what you will; we want the violence to stop," she said.

She strongly rejected parallels with the Lebanon conflict and said she would discuss with Egypt how to reduce the violence, as well as ways to secure Egypt's border with Gaza, briefly breached in January.

Rice said there was merit to the idea of giving the Palestinian Authority control at the sensitive border crossing at Rafah and having European monitors return. Hamas, however, has demanded a role at the border, largely closed since June.

"I will certainly be discussing how we make the Rafah situation sustainable and what that would mean for a role for the PA, for European monitors on that border," Rice said.

She also voiced concern about the loss of innocent life in Gaza and the humanitarian situation there, which she said would be brought up in all her discussions.

"I do think it will help if something can be done about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including about regularizing in some fashion the Rafah crossing," she said.

Rice is set to move on to the West Bank to see Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad later on Tuesday. She will then go to Jerusalem for talks with Israeli leaders, before leaving for Brussels on Wednesday for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers.