Rice urges Israelis and Palestinians to resume talks

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"Negotiations ought to resume as soon as possible," said Rice, who was in Cairo on the first leg of a brief Middle East trip aimed at salvaging the U.S-brokered peace process. She will also visit Jerusalem and the West Bank.

"I am going to have discussions with the parties about how we try to keep this process going, given that obviously there are going to be spoilers."

Rice's first meeting in Cairo was with Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, followed by talks with President Hosni Mubarak.

Saying Israel had the right to defend itself, Rice told reporters Hamas was trying to wreck Palestinian statehood talks between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who cut off negotiations last weekend.

"Hamas is doing what might be expected, which is using rocket attacks on Israel to arrest a peace process in which they have nothing to gain," Rice said.

She said any lengthy suspension of talks handed victory to Hamas, which seized control of Gaza last June and whose stepped up rocket attacks into Israel preceded the latest offensive.

Experts say Rice faces an uphill battle to revive the peace talks - launched to much fanfare last November, in Annapolis, Maryland with the goal of getting a Palestinian statehood deal before the Bush administration's term ends in January 2009.

"I continue to believe that they can get to a deal by the end of the year if everybody has got the will to do it," said Rice, adding implementation of a deal would take a lot longer.

She dismissed sceptics who have predicted the Annapolis process will fail without including Hamas and that U.S. attempts to isolate Gaza will ultimately backfire.

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