The United States is seeking ways to "accelerate progress" toward a two-state solution in the Middle East and to resolve the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice conveyed that message to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah, one of the stops on her recent trips to the Middle East. Secretary Rice said,
"The United States is absolutely committed to helping to find a solution where Israelis and Palestinians can live in security, in which they can live in peace and in which they can live in democracy."
Secretary of State Rice said that the U.S. is also committed to helping those in the Middle East who oppose extremism. She said,
"It is a time when extremist forces are attempting to make it impossible to have the kind of Middle East in which Israelis and Palestinians and other people of the Middle East can live in peace and in which democracy can make progress."
The United States, said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, wants the Palestinian people "to be able to live in unity and in democracy and in peace with a government that can get the respect and the support of the international communitay." That, she said, "is something the Palestinians people deserve."
