US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Sunday secured an Israeli pledge to remove 50 West Bank roadblocks to improve the daily lives of Palestinians and reinvigorate Middle East peace talks. The move was included in a package of steps Israel announced following a three-way meeting between Rice, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Rice won the Israeli promise during her second trip to the region in less than a month as she sought to advance faltering peace negotiations relaunched at a US conference in November. Israel “will remove some 50 barriers to allow vehicle movement between the towns of Jenin, Tulkarem, Qalqilya and Ramallah,” the defense ministry said. The measure affects a fraction of the more than 500 roadblocks and checkpoints the army operates across the occupied West Bank, but Israel said it will examine the possibility of removing further roadblocks by May. Fayyad hailed the move, saying “we accept these measures as acts to improve the people's lives and to strengthen the ability to work and build our state.” __
