Jerusalem: US President George W Bush today shook the han of an Israeli minster barred from entering the United States over his role in a high-profile spy case.

Bush, together with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and top White House officials, met with Pensioners Affairs Minister Rafi Eitan at a dinner party hosted by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in his Jerusalem residence, according to TV footage.

All the top ministers in Olmert's coalition government were also present at the event.

Olmert introduced Eitan to the president, although they were not shown talking. Eitan was then seen shaking hands with Rice alongside Defence Minister Ehud Barak.

The president will today end a three-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories aimed at boosting the Middle East peace talks that were relaunched last November.

Eitan, a member of Israel s security cabinet, was the old Mossad secret service handler for Jonathan Pollard, an American Jew sentenced to life in prison for spying on the United States.

Pollard had passed thousands of secret documents about US spy activities in the Arab world to Israel between May 1984 and his arrest in November 1985.

The controversy over Pollard, a US-born Jew who has taken Israeli citizenship while in prison, has been a thorn in the side of relations between Israel and its main ally Washington for years.

Source : PTI