Clinton holds preparatory meetings to ready parties for Mideast negotiations

America’s top diplomat, Secretary Clinton, made sure Tuesday that everyone’s clear on what the expectations are for Mideast peace negotiations later this week. She held preparatory meetings with several parties that’ll be involved in the direct negotiations, including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (as seen above), the Jordanian and Egyptian foreign ministers, "Quartet" representative Tony Blair, and finally at 7:45 p.m. Tuesday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley put it at Tuesday’s press briefing, it was a way of helping to "tee up" meetings with the presidents and prime ministers. He said:

It is not unusual when you have a meeting of presidents and prime ministers that the secretary of state will help to tee up those meetings and make sure that we have the same expectations about — on both sides —  about what will constitute a successful meeting. So the secretary is following up on the work that George Mitchell, Dennis Ross, Dan Shapiro, David Hale, and others have had in recent days and weeks, all to make sure that the relaunch of negotiations get off on the right foot.

If I have time Wednesday, I’ll post photos from the other preparatory meetings Clinton held, including those with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Quartet representative Tony Blair, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (I can’t post them now due to technical difficulties.)