Senior Rice aide, Philip Zelikow resigns from post

WASHINGTON, Nov 27 (Reuters) Philip Zelikow, one of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's closest advisers on Iraq and West Asia, plans to resign his post, a State Department official said today.

''He is going back to the University of Virginia at the beginning of the year,'' said the official, referring to Zelikow's former job.

Zelikow, who was counselor to Rice and had an office down the hall from the top US diplomat, was involved in many of the major issues facing the United States. In addition to Iraq and West Asia, he helped craft US policy on terror detainees held without trial at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere.

In September, Zelikow caused some ripples when he suggested during a speech at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy that to build a coalition for dealing with Iran, the United States needed to make progress on solving the Arab-Israeli dispute.

''For the Arab moderates and for the Europeans, some sense of progress and momentum on the Arab-Israeli dispute is just a sine qua non for their ability to cooperate actively with the United States on a lot of other things that we care about,'' he said in the speech.

The Bush administration sought afterward to reassure the Israelis that there had not been a change in policy.

Asked whether his speech had contributed to the decision to leave, the official said this was not the case. ''This is one of those rare cases in Washington where someone is leaving on their own terms,'' said the official.

Before joining Rice's staff last year, Zelikow was director of the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs. He was also executive director of the commission investigating the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States.

Reuters DH VP0032