US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met French President Jacques Chirac in Paris as part of a lightning tour of Europe for consultations on Iran. Rice arrived from Berlin, where she attended a meeting with foreign ministers of the major United Nations powers on how to act on Iran's nuclear program.
She spent an hour and a half with Chirac at the president's Elysee palace, and made no comments to the press before returning to Le Bourget airport outside Paris, from where she was to head to Britain.
In addition to the Iranian dossier, other topics expected to have figured in their talks included the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Lebanon and Syria.
The UN Security Council Wednesday unanimously approved a non-binding statement giving Iran 30 days to abandon its uranium enrichment activities.
Rice, in the plane heading to Paris from Berlin, hailed the text as a first step in dealing with Iran. She pointed out the non-binding declaration was a compromise shaped by weeks of negotiations with fellow veto-wielding Security Council members, notably Russia.
The US diplomat left Paris for Britain, where she was was to pay a visit to the northwestern cities of Liverpool and Blackburn. Blackburn is the home constituency of Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
