Rice to visit Democratic Republic of Congo

Washington, July 10: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will go to the Democratic Republic of Congo next week, said the State Department, the most senior US official to visit the central African nation in a decade.

Rice will be in the capital Kinshasa for a few hours on July 18 following a one-day trip to Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories where the United States is trying to promote peace between the warring factions.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Washington viewed mineral-rich Congo as an important country and wanted to show support to the former Belgian colony following decades of conflict there.

''This is a country that is seeking to emerge from a number of political perturbations, shall we say, and within the past year they've held a presidential election, there's been a transition of power that was at points somewhat contentious, yet the political process emerged,'' McCormack told reporters.

The last US secretary of state to visit the Congolese capital Kinshasa was Madeleine Albright in December 1997.

''It's an important visit, and it's important to mark the fact that they are working hard to push in the right direction,'' said McCormack of Rice's visit.

Congo's President Joseph Kabila took office last December after winning the country's first democratic elections in more than 40 years.

The election in Congo, formerly known as Zaire, was aimed at restoring peace to Africa's third largest country following a 1998-2003 war that cost the lives of almost 4 million people, mostly from hunger and disease.

But violence has continued since the election, particularly in Congo's turbulent eastern province. The United Nations has about 17,000 peacekeepers in Congo in what is the world body's biggest mission.

After visiting Congo, Rice is set to go to the Ghanaian capital Accra for a forum gathering many of the 38 sub-Saharan African countries that get trade benefits under the 7-year-old US African Growth and Opportunity Act.

The US law allows these countries to ship virtually all their goods to the United States without paying import duties.

Rice's final stop before returning home on July 20 will be Portugal, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. She is set to meet government officials in Lisbon and attend a possible meeting of the quartet of Middle East mediators if it takes place, a State Department official said.

The official said a quartet meeting, which groups together the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, was not yet definite.

Reuters>