2007年VOA标准英语-Rice to Discuss Gaza, Lebanon, Sudan in Paris

By David Gollust
State Department
21 June 2007

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flies to Paris early next week for meetings with top French officials and Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora. Middle East issues and Sudan will be on the agenda for the three-day Rice visit to the French capital, beginning Sunday. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department.

Condoleezza Rice (file photo)

Paris was to have been only the first stage of a more extensive trip by the secretary involving stops in the Middle East.

Her schedule was pared back after last week's takeover of Gaza by the militant¹ Palestinian Hamas movement. But the Middle East will be a prime topic in Paris meetings with the new French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Lebanese Prime Minister Siniora, and others.

Rice has conferred by telephone on the Gaza events with her counterparts from the international Middle East Quartet, which also includes Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.

Officials here say an effort was made to convene² a ministerial-level meeting of the Quartet during Rice's Paris visit but that scheduling problems will prevent it.

They say Quartet emissaries plan to meet in the Middle East in the coming week or two as a prelude³ to a ministerial meeting sometime in July.

In a telephone conference call late last week, the Quartet ministers expressed support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' decision to dissolve his mainstream⁴ Fatah movement's unity⁵ cabinet with Hamas, and also ended a 15-month embargo⁶ on direct aid to the Palestinian government.

State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack announced Rice's travel plans at a news briefing in which he also welcomed, as very positive, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's invitation to Mr. Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Jordan's King Abdullah for a meeting Monday in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.

McCormack said Rice has no plans to join that meeting and that the Bush administration encourages peace efforts initiated⁷ by the Middle East parties themselves.

"We don't have to participate in every meeting," McCormack said. "Just as Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas get together, we encourage that sort of dynamic, encourage that dialogue. It's important. Just because we aren't at every meeting doesn't mean we aren't intimately involved with the effort to try to bring about a more peaceful Middle East."

McCormack said Rice will discuss developments in Lebanon with Prime Minister Siniora, who will be in Paris on a previously-scheduled visit.

On Monday the secretary will join foreign ministers from China and several European and African countries in a French-initiated meeting of an expanded international contact group on the situation in Sudan's western Darfur region.

McCormack said the priority on Darfur is moving an expanded African Union and United Nations peacekeeping force into the region as quickly as possible, now that the Sudanese government has given its assent⁸ to the deployment⁹.

1 militant   

adj.激进的，好斗的；n.激进分子，斗士

参考例句：

• Some militant leaders want to merge with white radicals.一些好斗的领导人要和白人中的激进派联合。
• He is a militant in the movement.他在那次运动中是个激进人物。

2 convene   

v.集合，召集，召唤，聚集，集合

参考例句：

• The Diet will convene at 3p.m. tomorrow.国会将于明天下午三点钟开会。
• Senior officials convened in October 1991 in London.1991年10月，高级官员在伦敦会齐。

3 prelude   

n.序言，前兆，序曲

参考例句：

• The prelude to the musical composition is very long.这首乐曲的序曲很长。
• The German invasion of Poland was a prelude to World War II.德国入侵波兰是第二次世界大战的序幕。

4 mainstream   

n.（思想或行为的）主流；adj.主流的

参考例句：

• Their views lie outside the mainstream of current medical opinion.他们的观点不属于当今医学界观点的主流。
• Polls are still largely reflects the mainstream sentiment.民调还在很大程度上反映了社会主流情绪。

5 unity   

n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调

参考例句：

• When we speak of unity,we do not mean unprincipled peace.所谓团结，并非一团和气。
• We must strengthen our unity in the face of powerful enemies.大敌当前，我们必须加强团结。

6 embargo   

n.禁运（令）；vt.对...实行禁运，禁止（通商）

参考例句：

• This country put an oil embargo on an enemy country.该国对敌国实行石油禁运。
• During the war,they laid an embargo on commerce with enemy countries.在战争期间，他们禁止与敌国通商。

7 initiated   

n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入

参考例句：

• He has not yet been thoroughly initiated into the mysteries of computers. 他对计算机的奥秘尚未入门。
• The artist initiated the girl into the art world in France. 这个艺术家介绍这个女孩加入巴黎艺术界。

8 assent   

v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可

参考例句：

• I cannot assent to what you ask.我不能应允你的要求。
• The new bill passed by Parliament has received Royal Assent.议会所通过的新方案已获国王批准。

9 deployment   

n. 部署,展开

参考例句：

• He has inquired out the deployment of the enemy troops. 他已查出敌军的兵力部署情况。
• Quality function deployment (QFD) is a widely used customer-driven quality, design and manufacturing management tool. 质量功能展开(quality function deployment,QFD)是一个广泛应用的顾客需求驱动的设计、制造和质量管理工具。