Obama: Mideast peace envoy to engage "vigorously"

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Obama: Mideast peace envoy to engage "vigorously"

By Matt Spetalnick and Arshad Mohammed Matt Spetalnick And Arshad Mohammed – 47 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama vowed on Monday that his new Middle East envoy George Mitchell would engage vigorously in the quest for Israeli-Palestinian peace and expressed confidence he would achieve concrete results.

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.

"The cause of peace in the Middle East is important to the United States and our national interests. It's important to me personally," Obama said after a White House meeting with Mitchell, who was due to head to the region later on Monday.

"The charge that Sen. Mitchell has is to engage vigorously and consistently in order for us to achieve genuine progress. When I say progress -- not just photo ops but progress that is concretely felt by the people on the ground," Obama told reporters.

Mitchell, a former U.S. senator and a mediator who helped to resolve the Northern Ireland conflict, was named by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week to lead U.S. efforts to end the six-decade Arab-Israeli conflict.

His weeklong trip, which will take him to Egypt, Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, France and Britain, is aimed at shoring up a fragile ceasefire that ended Israel's 22-day offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and reinvigorating the stalled peace process.

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