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Rice wants 'serious' talks
19/09/2007 09:50 - (SA)
Shannon - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday she wanted a "serious and substantive" international conference this autumn to advance the cause of Palestinian-Israeli peace.
"This meeting has to, in a substantive way, support the activities and the efforts of the parties to lay the foundations for the negotiation of a Palestinian state as soon as possible," she told journalists in the plane taking her to the Middle East.
"I think everybody expects it to be serious and substantive. I think everybody expects it to address critical issues and we do not expect anything less," Rice said before a stopover in Shannon, Ireland.
"The key here is that everybody who ... has an interest in these issues, and I would include in that the parties, the regional states and a number of international actors, the Quartet for instance, we all have an interest in a meeting that advances the cause of Palestinian-Israeli peace," she went on, implicitly ruling out Syrian participation in the conference.
"Nobody wants a meeting where people simply come and talk and talk. We want to advance the cause," said Rice, on her sixth tour of the region this year.
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