President Bush will repeat his message that Middle East peace is up to nations in the region when he meets the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, the White House said yesterday.
"It'll be part of the ongoing conversations that the president is having with leaders in the region to help create a framework that supports peace ... by reminding them that it's really up to the Israelis and the Palestinians to create the will to create the peace," said the Bush spokesman, Mr Ari Fleischer.
"The United States will be there to help facilitate it," Mr Fleischer said a day before the meeting, scheduled for 9:55 a.m. (1.55 p.m. Irish time) tomorrow.
Since taking office January 20th, Mr Bush has taken a largely hands-off policy to forging lasting peace in the region.
Meanwhile yesterday Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani said the foreign ministers of Qatar and Israel would meet in Washington tomorrow.
"I will meet today with the Israeli Foreign Minister to discuss these [Middle East peace] efforts," Sheikh Hamad told reporters after talks with the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell.
Qatar was one of a handful of Arab countries that opened relations with Israel after the Oslo agreement of 1993, but not at full ambassadorial level.
Israel opened a trade office in the Qatari capital Doha but the Qataris closed it down last year after the outbreak of a Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation.
Israeli and Qatari leaders have had several meetings over the years but the Israeli official said this was the first since the uprising began in late September.
The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad, met the then Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, in New York in September last year, before the Intifada started.