TUNIS, September 6, 2008 (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Tunis early Saturday to pursue a North Africa tour after a landmark meeting in Libya with its leader Moamer Kadhafi.

The United States has key military ties with Tunisia and is also seeking to conclude a free trade accord with the Maghreb nation.

Rice arrived in Tunis from Tripoli where she was the first US secretary of state to visit for 55 years and held a meeting with Kadhafi to seal a US-Libya rapprochement.

She was greeted at the El Aouina military base near Tunis by Tunisian Foreign Minister Abdelwaheb Abdallah. The US delegation was taken under heavy escort to a seaside residence to rest before starting official talks with Abdallah and President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Rice will visit a cemetery for US dead from World War II and stop at the US embassy which acts as regional headquarters for the US Middle East Partnership Initiative which aims to support political and economic reforms in the region.

She is the first US top diplomat to visit Tunis since Colin Powell in 2003.

The United States gives technical assistance to the Tunisian army as the two countries have longstanding 'strategic' ties. They held joint manoeuvres in May at the Bizerte naval and air base and in the Mediterranean.

The two countries are also in preliminary talks for a free trade accord. Bilateral trade is estimated at about 600 million dollars a year. US firms make substantial investments in the Tunisian oil and energy sector.