JAKARTA: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmed Thursday she would attend an international conference next month in Egypt to help rebuild Gaza after the Hamas-Israel war.
I will go to Cairo next week to a conference sponsored by the Egyptians to try to get humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, Clinton told the news media during a visit to Indonesia.
Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said last week that Clinton would attend the March 2 conference but there had been no confirmation from the US State Department.
Cairo has been mediating a truce in Gaza after Hamas and Israel declared on Jan. 18 their own ceasefires to a devastating 22-day war in the densely populated coastal enclave that killed more than 1,300 Palestinians.
More than 70 countries are expected at the meeting, according to the Egyptian foreign ministry.
Clinton said she and President Barack Obama wanted to re-engage in the Middle East after Washington under former president George W. Bush had not been as active in trying to bring the parties together.
The new administration would work hard to support the Palestinian authorities so that they can help their people.
The United States remained committed to a two-state solution so that Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace side by side, she said.
The secretary was speaking on the popular youth-oriented show Dahsyat (Awesome), on RCTI, the oldest private television station in Indonesia.
Her first trip abroad as secretary of state is a four-country swing through Asia including Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country and a thriving democracy where Obama spent four years as a child in the late 1960s.
Indonesian Muslim leaders have welcomed Obama s promise to reach out to the Islamic world after eight years of the Bush administration marked by the US-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
But they stress there will be no improvement in US standing with Muslims until it does more to settle the Middle East conflict.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said the international body plans to launch a 613-billion-dollar funding drive to help the people of Gaza. -AFP
