Rice pressures Israel on conference document

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday pushed for core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be addressed in a document setting parameters for a Middle East conference.

Israel had hoped to keep the pre-conference paper as vague as possible.

"Now we are talking about a joint document that will seriously and substantively address core issues. We have come quite a long way. We've got quite a long way to go," Ms Rice said.

Both Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have said they hope the conference, expected to be held next month, will be a launching point for negotiations on Palestinian statehood.

But Mr Olmert, who faces right-wing resistance in his Cabinet, has called for a broad brush document and rejected President Abbas's calls for a timeframe for resolving thorny issues such as borders and the future of Jerusalem and millions of Palestinian refugees.

"Everything should be clear in the conference and then we can go to negotiations in a specified time in order to reach a peace treaty," President Abbas told reporters after meeting Ms Rice, who began a four-day visit to the region on Sunday.

"After (the conference), the negotiations will not be open-ended. They should have a timeline so we can achieve as much as we can achieve in the coming period," he said.

Ms Rice, speaking at a joint news conference with Mr Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said Washington was holding off issuing invitations to the gathering in Annapolis, Maryland, while Israel and the Palestinians worked on the document.

"We've not issued invitations because we want the work of this bilateral track to continue very aggressively," Ms Rice said.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams planned to meet later in the day to continue trying to draft the paper. Mr Olmert has appointed Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who has cautioned against moving too quickly on core issues, as chief negotiator.

Israel and the Palestinians failed to reach a final agreement on key aspects of their conflict in talks that collapsed in 2001 amid a surge in violence.

Both sides have voiced concern of another outbreak of fighting should the conference fail.

Ms Rice and Mr Abbas said the gathering, widely seen as a bid by the Bush administration to repair its image in the Middle East after the Iraq war, must be more than a "photo-op".