France's Kouchner to meet Obama aides in Washington

(PARIS) - French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner will meet aides to President-elect Barack Obama as well as current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a visit to Washington next week, his office said.

But the minister, whose country holds the European Union presidency, will not deliver a letter on boosting US-European ties under Obama's future Democratic administration, as it had been initially suggested he would.

Foreign ministers from the 27-member EU agreed this week on a text that charts a new course for trans-Atlantic relations.

But Desagneaux said that while Kouchner would use the document as a basis for his discussions in Washington, the EU has decided to wait until Obama takes office on January 20 before formally handing it over.

Kouchner heads to Washington Tuesday before delivering an address Wednesday to a Washington think tank, the Brookings Institution, that is close to Obama's Democratic Party, said foreign ministry spokesman Frederic Desagneaux.

The minister will be the first French official to travel to Washington since Obama's election victory, which has been hailed in Europe as an opportunity to turn the page on eight years of tense ties under George W. Bush.

Kouchner warned on Thursday that Europe would not give a "blank cheque" to the incoming US administration.

But he said Obama's election raised "hope on all fronts including the Middle East, Iran -- whether there will be a dialogue or not -- Afghanistan, Pakistan and relations with Russian and China etcetera..."

Obama has floated the idea of holding direct talks with Tehran, ending decades of standoff with Iran -- with which Washington has no diplomatic ties -- and moving closer to the European policy of engagement.