US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas today after discussions with Israeli leaders on how to ease restrictions on Palestinians and move peace talks forward.
Ms Rice met Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak before travelling to Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, to see Abbas.
Barak exerts great influence over the network of West Bank checkpoints and roadblocks that Palestinians view as collective punishment and a blight on their economy. Israel argues it needs the barriers to prevent suicide bombings.
Speaking before she arrived yesterday for a two-day visit to the region, Rice said she would assess Israel's steps on the ground to see if they had improved the daily lives of Palestinians, including promised removal of barriers.
"The first thing we are going to do is to review the ones that were supposedly moved," Rice said, adding she wanted to discuss with Israeli officials how significant those barriers were to allowing greater movement for the Palestinians.
"Not all roadblocks are created equal," Rice said.
Rice met Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert after arriving in Jerusalem on Saturday night. Olmert, in broadcast remarks on Sunday, gave no details of the discussions other than to say they were "part of the (peace) effort, which we will not halt".
Abbas and Olmert, who are due to meet tomorrow following Rice's departure, agreed in November to resume peace talks with the aim of reaching an agreement by the end of this year. The peace negotiations have yet to show tangible progress.
After Rice's last trip in late March, Israel said it planned to remove 61 barriers in the West Bank. But a UN survey subsequently found that only 44 obstacles had been scrapped and that most were of little or no significance.
Western pressure is mounting on Olmert to do more to ease travel restrictions and take other steps to shore up Abbas, whose authority has been limited to the West Bank since Hamas Islamists took over the Gaza Strip in June.
Abbas's security forces deployed to the northern West Bank city of Jenin yesterday for a law-and-order campaign meant to show the government is laying the ground for statehood.
Rice also plans to hold trilateral meetings with the top peace negotiators, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Ahmed Qurei of the Palestinians.
US officials are sensitive to the lack of demonstrable progress in the talks and they hope to use a visit by US President George W Bush, who will travel to the region this month to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Israel's founding, to nudge them along.