WASHINGTON — U.S. President George Bush will visit the Middle East in January, the White House has said. The announcement comes a week after Bush hosted talks at which Israeli and Palestinian leaders pledged to seek a peace deal before the end of 2008. Iran will also be a key issue, after U.S. intelligence said on Monday that the country is not actively developing nuclear weapons. Bush said Iran remained dangerous and could restart a bomb program. The White House did not confirm Israeli reports that the president would visit Israel during his Middle East tour. But the BBC’s Justin Webb in Washington says such a visit is highly likely. It would be Bush’s first to Israel as U.S. president. Any visit there would take on a particular significance in the wake of the U.S. intelligence community’s change of heart on Iran. The National Intelligence Estimate said with “high confidence” that it believed Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, but that it was continuing to enrich uranium. Responding to the new assessment, the Israeli Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, said he believed Iran posed a threat to the entire world, which must be prepared to deal with this threat and foil it. — BBC