Washington- U.S. President George W. Bush has nominated two career diplomats to be the next U.S. ambassadors to Egypt and Israel.

Bush selected Ambassador Francis Ricciardone to be the next U.S. representative to Egypt, the White House said in a statement yesterday. Ricciardone, who speaks Italian, Turkish, Arabic, and French, has served in several U.S. diplomatic missions.

Ricciardone was most recently the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines. He has served two tours in Turkey, where he was deputy chief of mission and charge d-affaires, and has worked in Cairo, Amman, and London. He also has served on multinational military deployments in the Sinai and along the Turkey-Iraq border. In Washington, he has worked in the State Department”s intelligence branch, the Near East bureau, and as a manager.

Bush picked Ambassador Richard Jones to be the next U.S. representative to Israel, the White House said. Jones, whose diplomatic work has concentrated on economic and Middle East issues, was the U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan under President Bill Clinton and previously was U.S. ambassador to Lebanon.

In Washington, Jones has served as an Egyptian expert, the director of developed country trade, and petroleum attache. He was counselor for political affairs in the U.S. embassy in Riyadh during the first Gulf War, and previously was posted in Paris and Tunis.