Iraq, Darfur, Cyprus on the menu for Rice’s Europe tour
April 23, 2006 (WASHINGTON) — The wars in Iraq and Darfur and the Cyprus question will be high on the menu as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice starts off Monday for a new tour of Europe.
The State Department has been guarded about the exact itinerary of Washington’s top diplomat during April 24-28, but Turkey’s foreign ministry says she will be there on April 26, and Greece’s top diplomat, Dora Bakoyannis, said she will receive Rice the next day.
Bulgaria is another planned stop, the State Department said, as Rice’s trip will coincide with the NATO foreign ministers meeting there on April 27-28.
But the State Department remains mum about where Rice will head at the very beginning of the trip.
Washington is restricted from revealing the movements of its officials when extra security is required.
“In Turkey and Greece she will review our shared interests with these strategic partners,” said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack last week as he announced Rice’s tour.
McCormack noted specifically she will be discussing “advancing democracy and peace in the broader Middle East and beyond, combating terrorism, Cyprus and Turkey’s EU accession, and Eurasian energy security.”
In Ankara, Rice is expected to meet with her counterpart Abdullah Gul, President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Subjects expected to be discussed include the situation in Iraq and the nuclear posture of Iran, both countries sitting on Turkey’s borders.
Ankara is anxious for its US ally to take a stance against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been making attacks on Turkey from refuges in the mountainous Kurdish region of northern Iraq.
Rice’s tour coincides with the apparent resolution of Iraq’s impasse over choosing its next prime minister. On Saturday Shiite leader Jawad al-Maliki was nominated as prime minister and tasked by President Jalal Talabani with forming the first full-term post-Saddam Hussein government within 30 days, signaling an end to the deadlock that stretched months after Iraq’s national elections.
Rice Saturday called it an “important milestone,” adding that it will lead to Iraq getting a ministry of interior “that can oversee the creation of a police force that the people of Iraq will have confidence in that is not sectarian and that represents the interests of all Iraqis.”
On her visit to Athens, Rice is expected to address the continuing problem of divided Cyprus. Peace talks have gone nowhere since the 2004 UN plan for reunification failed after Greek Cypriots rejected it in a referendum, against Turkish Cypriot support.
In Sofia, Rice is expected to raise the question of the civil war-wracked Sudan province of Darfur. Washington hopes the United Nations will deploy its peacekeeping forces to the region with NATO logistical support, but Khartoum has rejected the idea.
A dinner during the NATO meeting will bring together the foreign ministers of the alliance and the European Union.
Rice will meanwhile take advantage of the visit to sign a bilateral defense accord with Bulgaria.
(ST/AFP)