LONDON, March 1: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has put off a visit to Canada next month, the State Department said Tuesday in what was seen as a rebuff to Ottawa for pulling out of US plans to deploy a missile defence shield over North America.

Ms Rice was scheduled to visit Canada in the second week of April, but her spokesman Richard Boucher said "the schedules didn't work out". "We are looking for a date when we can make that happen," he said, without confirming or denying reports that the cancellation was due to problems over missile defence.

But a US official travelling with Rice to a London meeting on the Palestinian problem said the trip's cancellation was "in part" due to Canada's refusal to cooperate on missile defence. Canada said last week it would not participate in US missile defence shield plans after mulling its stand on the issue for more than a year. -AFP