WASHINGTON, April 9 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will travel later this month to Bahrain and Kuwait for meetings to discuss Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the State Department said on Wednesday. Rice's first stop will be Bahrain on April 21 to meet foreign ministers from the Gulf Cooperation Council as well as Egypt and Jordan, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. He said Rice would discuss Iraq and encourage Arab states to support U.S.-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that were officially launched last November in Annapolis, Maryland. "The secretary will also raise the importance of Arab states supporting those discussions and supporting the Palestinian negotiators as they go through this process," said McCormack. She will then go to Kuwait for a ministerial-level meeting of Iraq's neighbors on April 22 as well as permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and others. It is a follow-on from two other meetings of Iraq's neighbors that were held in Turkey and Egypt. "The meetings focus on ways in which Iraq's neighbors can participate in Iraq's development," said McCormack. He said the United States would continue to press Arab nations to open diplomatic missions in Iraq. Saudi Arabia promised last year to open an embassy but has so far failed to follow through on the pledge. "We have encouraged people to open up diplomatic missions in Baghdad as part of conducting the normal commerce of international diplomacy," he said. At previous meetings of Iraq's neighbors, Rice had brief encounters with Iran's foreign minister but McCormack said there was nothing scheduled in Kuwait. The United States has no diplomatic ties with Iran but there have been talks between the U.S. and Iranian ambassadors to Baghdad to discuss violence in Iraq. The United States accuses Iran of funneling weapons into Iraq that have been used to attack U.S. troops trying to secure stability there more than five years after U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein. Washington is at loggerheads with Iran over its nuclear program, which the United States suspects is aimed at building an atomic bomb and Tehran says is for peaceful power purposes. Rice has made clear she will only speak to Iran about its nuclear program if it suspends sensitive nuclear work first. At the Istanbul meeting last November, Rice met on the sidelines with Syria's foreign minister when she delivered a firm message to Damascus to stop interfering in Lebanon's electoral process. (Reporting by Sue Pleming; Editing by Eric Walsh)
Israeli policemen wearing protective gear take part in a drill simulating a chemical attack in the northern city of Haifa April 9, 2008, as part of a five-day nationwide exercise to ...
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