Rice trying to get Palestinians, Israelis closer to an agreement

The secretary said she hopes to narrow the differences between the two sides.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice opened an intense round of Mideast shuttle diplomacy Sunday, struggling to bring Israelis and Palestinians close enough to make a planned U.S.-hosted peace conference worthwhile.

The two sides are at bitter odds over an outline of a peace agreement that would be presented at next month’s conference, and Rice sought to lower expectations her mission would finalize preparations for the gathering.

Underscoring her less-than-optimistic assessment, Israeli and Palestinians traded shots about the other’s commitment to peace even as she arrived in the region. During her four-day visit, she will bounce between Israel and the West Bank, seeking a consensus.

Her hope is to close the gap as Israel and the Palestinian Authority try to forge an outline of an eventual peace deal and produce a joint statement for the conference. It is expected to held in Annapolis, Md., in late November.

But after Rice’s first series of meetings, a senior State Department official hinted that the date could slide as the lead negotiators for the two sides will begin only this week to try to craft the document.

“This is going to take some time,” the official told reporters on condition of anonymity in order to describe the private conversations. “This is going to require a lot of hands-on American diplomacy. These are really tough issues.”

And on her flight from Moscow, where she held talks with Russian leaders, Rice said she did not believe her visit would clear the way for that statement or make enough progress so that conference invitations could go out.

“I don’t expect out of these meetings that there will be any particular outcome in the sense of breakthroughs on the document,” she told reporters on her plane. She said intends to return at least once to the Mideast before the conference.

Rice said she wanted to “help them narrow differences that they may have about what the nature of this document has to be.”

“I do think it’s important that they address the core issues in some fashion,” she said. “I also think it’s important that the document be substantive enough that it points that there is a way forward toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

Israel is pressing for a vaguely worded document that would give it more room to maneuver. The Palestinians want a detailed preliminary agreement with a timetable for creating a Palestinian state as well was specifics on borders, sovereignty over disputed Jerusalem and a solution for Palestinian refugees — the “final status” issues.

Israel said Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni would lead negotiations with the Palestinian team led by Ahmed Qureia, a former prime minister.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his Cabinet he did not believe the joint statement was a prerequisite for the conference. He repeated that in his two-hour plus meeting with Rice, according to his office.

The goal, Olmert said, “is to arrive at a joint statement during the international conference, even though the existence of such a statement was never a condition for holding this conference.”

But the acting Palestinian foreign minister, Riad Malki, said his side would skip the conference without agreement on a statement.

“Without a document to resolve this conflict, we can’t go to the conference next month,” he said. “Olmert is looking for a public relations conference and one that will allow normalization with Arab countries. We will not help him in this.”