The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Washington

US President George W. Bush, seeking a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians before he leaves office, will visit the Middle East in early January, the White House said late Tuesday. "The president will go to the Middle East region in early January. Details to come," said US National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe, who declined to confirm Israeli media reports that Bush would go to Israel. The announcement came one week after Bush announced at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, that Israelis and Palestinians had agreed to restart negotiations with the goal of creating a Palestinian state by late 2008. The daily Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot cited sources in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office as saying that Bush would arrive in Israel on January 9, but that it was unlear whether the US president would meet with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas or visit nearby countries. The daily said that the visit was arranged during Olmert's visits to the White House last week around the Annapolis conference. If Bush were to go to Israel, it would be his first visit there as president, and his first since traveling there as Texas governor in 1998. Bush leaves office in January 2009. The last visit to Israel by a sitting US president was by his predecessor, Bill Clinton, in December 1998.