Bush plans to visit the Mideast

President Bush will visit the Mideast next month, the White House said Tuesday, presumably in an effort to promote the new round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

White House officials declined to provide additional details, but Israeli news media, quoting unidentified Israeli government sources, reported that Bush would visit Israel and the Palestinian territories.

A visit to Israel would be Bush’s first as president.

He presided over a conference last week in Annapolis, Md., that gave an international blessing to the new peace effort, and said he would do all he could to encourage progress on the issue.

Only last week, though, Bush played down the idea that he might visit the Mideast to push the negotiations forward.

“Going to a region in itself is not going to unstick negotiations,” he said in an interview with CNN. “This idea that somehow you are supposed to travel and therefore good things are going to happen is just not realistic.”

The president’s engagement in the peace effort has become a subject of keen interest.

The Palestinians, along with many Arab and European countries, want the U.S. to play an active role in the peace talks, which could quickly break down. But many Israelis are worried that close involvement could mean pressure on Israel to make compromises it is not ready to make.

The president has insisted that he will encourage the two sides and facilitate their talks, but will leave them to sort out a solution.

Bush, who has not been as fond of travel as other presidents, including his father, visited Israel in 1998, when he was governor of Texas.

He went on a helicopter trip with then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that convinced him, he said later, that Israel was a small country with well-founded fears for its security.

paul.richter@latimes.com