Mitchell in Israel Today

George Mitchell, the United States Envoy to the Middle East, will arrive in Israel today for his third visit as envoy. Mitchell is scheduled to meet with the top officials of Binyamin Netanyahu's government. Today, he is due to meet with Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Tomorrow he will meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. He is also scheduled to meet opposition leader Tzipi Livni.   

Mitchell visited Algeria and Morocco earlier this week. After a meeting with Morocco's Foreign Minister, Taieb Fassi Fihri, he reiterated America's support for a Palestinian state and a comprehensive regional peace:

The President of the United States, Barack Obama, and the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, have made clear that the objective of the United States in the region is a comprehensive peace, a resolution of all outstanding conflicts as soon as possible. In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we believe that the two-state solution, two states living side by side in peace, is the best and the only way to resolve this conflict, and we will be pursuing that objective in meetings that I will be having in other countries in the region over the next two weeks.