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POTSDAM (AFP) - G8 foreign ministers gathered here on Wednesday to thrash out the issues for next week's G8 summit in Germany with Afghanistan, Kosovo and climate change on the agenda.

On a busy day of diplomacy, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and their Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov were in the evening to travel from Potsdam to Berlin for a meeting of the Quartet on Middle East peace -- the United States, the UN, the EU and Russia.

The Potsdam meeting is aimed at preparing the ground for the summit of leaders of the Group of Eight most industrialized nations in Heiligendamm, northeast Germany, on June 6-8.

The situation in strife-torn Afghanistan was high on the agenda at Wednesday's meeting.