Washington: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may cancel a planned trip to China this week amid Israel's military offensive in Gaza, the State Department said today.
State Department spokesman Fred Lash told AFP that whether the top US diplomat would go ahead with her China trip was "in flux" and that a decision would likely be announced later today.
"We re looking at the travel plans, looking at the situation there ... And evaluating it," he said, adding that "there's been no change at this point."
Lash said it had not yet been determined whether Rice would travel to the Middle East after Israel's nine-day offensive on Hamas targets, which has left at least 500 Palestinians dead, according to medical workers.
Rice's China trip, announced several days ago, was to have been her last foreign travel before President George W Bush's term ends on January 20. The trip was to mark 30 years of US-Chinese diplomatic relations.
