WASHINGTON (AFP) – U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday announced the resignation of David Welch, her top Middle East diplomat who oversaw the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and U.S. normalization with Libya.

A career diplomat, Welch, 55, becomes the first of the U.S. assistant secretaries of state to resign in the transition to the administration of Barack Obama, who succeeds George W. Bush as president on January 20.
""You have made a consequential, historical difference to the security of our country, to the promotion of its values, to peace and security and prosperity in a region that is sort of lacking in it,"" Rice said in a tribute to Welch.
""You have been extraordinary in your work and I have been honored to be your colleague,"" Rice said before giving him a warm embrace at a ceremony attended by journalists.
Welch said: ""It's been a good career to be an American diplomat... I was fortunate to work on the most exciting and challenging of issues.""
Sworn in as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs in March 2005, Welch served as Rice's pointman on the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks that were revived in Annapolis, Maryland in November last year.
He also oversaw the long process to fully normalize U.S. relations with Libya that culminated in Rice's meeting in Tripoli in September with Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, long a U.S. pariah. It was the first by a U.S. secretary of state to Libya in more than 50 years.
A fluent Arabic speaker, he was seen as a defender of the Arabs within the Bush administration, where he tried to blunt the influence of White House advisers like Elliott Abrams, whom ex-president Jimmy Carter called ""a very militant supporter of Israel.""
Married and father of three girls, Welch said he intended to work in the private sector, without elaborating.