US envoy Mitchell kicks off Mideast tour in Egypt

New peace envoy George Mitchell kicked off a Middle East tour in key American ally Egypt on Tuesday, charged by President Barack Obama to "engage vigorously" to achieve real progress in the region, as violence flared in the Gaza strip.

Mitchell arrived with violence still simmering in the Gaza Strip after Israel ended its 22-day offensive, with one Palestinian shot dead and an Israeli soldier killed in the latest flare-up, according to Al Arabiya TV.

The U.S. envoy is expected in Egypt later Tuesday ahead of talks on Wednesday with President Hosni Mubarak, whose country receives around $2 billion a year in American aid -- second only to Israel.

Cairo has been at the vanguard of efforts to negotiate a lasting truce between Israel and Hamas, as well as to reconcile the Islamists with their rivals from Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction.

“He will not have contact with Hamas,” said state department spokesman Robert Wood Monday. He did not rule out Mitchell’s also travelling to the Gaza Strip, where Hamas fighters and Israel fought a war that killed at least 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.

Wading quickly into Middle East diplomacy, Obama dispatched Mitchell, a veteran international trouble-shooter, to tackle a conflict the new president's predecessor George W. Bush had been widely criticized for neglecting for much of his tenure.

A week after his historic inauguration, Obama told Al Arabiya that he did not want expectations raised too high for swift progress but said progress was still achievable and urged a “return to the negotiating table."

And while he declared support for a two-state solution in the interview he gave no indication when or where a Palestinian state would be established.

The charge that Senator Mitchell has is to engage vigorously and consistently in order for us to achieve genuine progress

President Barack Obama

Regional tour

Mitchell’s trip, which is to include Israel, the Palestinian West Bank, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, is aimed at bolstering a ceasefire that went into effect in Gaza on Jan. 18 and at tackling the humanitarian crisis in the devastated Palestinian territory.

"The charge that Senator Mitchell has is to engage vigorously and consistently in order for us to achieve genuine progress," Obama said after talks at the White House attended also by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Ahead of Mitchell's departure, State Department spokesman Robert Wood did not rule out his also travelling to the Gaza Strip, where Islamist Hamas fighters and Israel fought a war that killed at least 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.

"[h]e’s going out to listen," said Wood. "He wants to hear what the leaders have to say. And he’s going to report back to the Secretary and the President on his trip, and we’ll begin to continue formulating policy from there."

After meeting Mubarak, Mitchell will go on Wednesday to Israel and the West Bank until Friday for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, a State Department official said, requesting anonymity.

On Saturday, he was to visit Amman before visiting Riyadh on Sunday, the official added. Mitchell is due to stop in Paris on Monday and London on Tuesday before returning to Washington, with a possible stopover in Turkey.

The 75-year-old Mitchell said he did not "underestimate the difficulty" of his assignment when he was named special Middle East envoy last week by Obama and Clinton.

A state department official told AlArabiya.net on condition of anonymity that it was not clear why Obama needed to appoint a special envoy for the peace process when this was under the purview of the secretary of state and should be a latter step not a first one.

Mitchell, a Maronite Catholic whose mother was Lebanese, managed to bring together the leaders of Northern Ireland's religious communities with a mixture of compromise and talks to sign the historic Good Friday agreement in 1998.