US official visits Tunisia

The assistant US secretary of state for political affairs, Thomas Pickering, arrived in Tunisia on Monday to hold talks with high-ranking officials on bilateral cooperation, the situation in the Middle East and security and stability issues in North Africa and the Mediterranean.

Pickering's visit is the second in less than two weeks by a US official, following a regional tour by Undersecretary of State Stuart Eizenstat.

US Undersecretary of State for Middle East Affairs Martin Indyk visited Tunisia in March within a tour that included Algeria and Morocco in which talks concentrated on methods of activating the halted peace process in the Middle East.

Eizenstat visited Tunisia to present a US - Maghreb partnership project that includes the cancellation of internal customs barriers between Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, in order to form an economic entity that can negotiate with the US to establish full economic trade. A Tunisian source told ArabicNews.com that Pickering will meet with Tunisian Prime Minister Hamed Karoui, Foreign Minister Said Ben Mustafa, and President Zien El-Abdin Ben Ali.

The sources said that Pickering's talks with the Tunisian officials will include the project for US - Maghreb partnership and an idea suggested by Washington concerning a high-level meeting for political officials from the four countries before the end of the year in the US capital.

They also will discuss the halted Middle East peace process, the relations between Iraq and UNSCOM and the recent developments in Lockerbie crisis.