Rice Cancels Visit to African Nations

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speaks at the Organization of American States/African Union Democracy Bridge Forum, Wednesday July 11, 2007, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) (Manuel Balce Ceneta - AP)

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has dropped Africa entirely from an overseas trip this week to focus on Iraq and Middle East peace efforts, the State Department said Monday.

Rice instead will travel only to Portugal, which now holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, for a Thursday meeting of the international diplomatic Quartet on the Middle East. She cut a U.S.-Africa trade forum in Ghana from an already shortened itinerary, spokesman Sean McCormack said.

Rice had been due in both Ghana and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as Israel and the Palestinian territories, on the trip. Last week she cancelled the stop in Congo and put off travelling to the Middle East until the end of the month when she will go there with Defense Secretary Robert Gates at President Bush's direction.

McCormack said Rice had called Ghanian President John Kufour on Monday to tell him she would now also be skipping an annual forum in Accra on the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, a centerpiece in the administration's stated commitment to improving the economic lot of the world's poorest continent.

Instead, Rice will stay in Washington to concentrate on the Middle East and Iraq, he said.

Rice was to have spent only 20 hours in Ghana, meeting with Kufour and delivering an address to the forum's gala dinner on Wednesday evening and attending the conference on Thursday morning before departing for Lisbon.

McCormack said Rice still hoped to speak to the conference in videotaped remarks and denied suggestions that her non-attendance signalled Africa was becoming less of a priority for Bush and his aides.

"It is not a diminishment in our interest in seeing Africa progress. I don't think there is any question about the Bush administration's commitment to Africa," he said, noting several initiatives, including AGOA and health programs, that have been enacted over the past six years.

In addition to missing the conference in Ghana, Rice also decided against making a landmark trip this week to Congo where she would have been the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit in a decade.