(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-12-11 16:07

WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush announced on Monday he planned to visit Israel next month to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

US President George W. Bush meets with Jewish leaders in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, December 10, 2007. They are (L-R) Dr. Vladimir Kvint, President of the International Academy of Emerging Markets; Yuli Edelstein, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset; Bush; and Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, Abayudaya Jews of Uganda. [Agencies]

Participants in an annual White House meeting marking the Jewish festival of Hanukkah said Bush confirmed reports he would make his first trip to Israel in January since taking office. The President hosted a Middle East conference in November aimed at jump-starting stalled peace talks.

Jewish leaders from the United States and other countries who met him on Monday said Bush did not say whether he would also go to the Palestinian territories. But a Palestinian official said on Saturday Bush would visit both Israel and the Palestinian areas January 9-11.

The White House has only said Bush would make a Middle East tour next month but has withheld precise dates and venues.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledged at last month's conference in Annapolis, Maryland, to try to forge a peace agreement by the end of 2008.

After the 44-nation gathering, Bush assured the two leaders the United States would actively engage in peacemaking, despite deep skepticism over the chances for a deal before he leaves office in January 2009. Olmert and Abbas are politically weak at home, and Bush is weighed down by an unpopular war in Iraq.

Criticized for a hands-off approach to Middle East diplomacy, Bush's decision to make the trip appears intended to reinforce his newfound commitment.

"I told him I hoped he would be in Israel soon," Yuli Edelstein, a member of Israel's parliament, told Reuters after the group met Bush. "He confirmed he's coming next month."

Israeli news media said Bush would reassure the Jewish state that Washington stood firm against Iran's nuclear program despite a new US intelligence report, disputed by Israel, that Tehran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

Bush has had to defend his hardline Iran policy since last week's intelligence report, which contradicted his earlier assertions Tehran was trying to build a bomb. Iran says it wants nuclear technology for strictly civilian purposes.