WASHINGTON—Israeli and Palestinian negotiators neared an agreement on Monday on a peace agenda ahead of a new drive by President Bush to restart long-dormant talks to create a Palestinian state.
Expectations were low for three days of meetings in Washington and nearby Annapolis, Maryland, partly because Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas all face political challenges at home.
Despite the difficulties, Israeli and Palestinian officials said they were close to sealing an agreement on a joint document that would outline the peace goals to follow this week's sessions.
A top aide to Abbas, Yasser Abed Rabbo, predicted an announcement on Monday or Tuesday on the joint document and said "there will be extensive meetings and efforts in order to reach this document."
Israeli officials said negotiators had narrowed some of their differences over the document, which will chart the course for negotiating the toughest issues of the conflict -- Jerusalem, borders, security and Palestinian refugees.
"We're getting close," said an Israeli official.
Syria and Saudi Arabia promised to attend the Annapolis talks Tuesday, joining envoys from more than 40 countries at the U.S. Naval Academy, making the conference one of the most sweeping efforts in years.
Damascus will send a deputy minister rather than the foreign minister hoped for by U.S. organizers.
A senior Israeli official played down the chances of any direct talks—or even an exchange of hand shakes—between Israeli and Saudi or Syrian leaders during the conference.
"They (Arab leaders) won't do it until they get something concrete from Israel," the official said on condition of anonymity.
Washington says the hard work will begin only after this week, when Israelis and Palestinians must tackle the issues at the core of the conflict.
"This conference will signal international support for the Israelis' and Palestinians' intention to commence negotiations on the establishment of a Palestinian state and the realization of peace between these two peoples," Bush said in welcoming the two Middle East leaders who arrived over the weekend.
In a reminder of the tit-for-tat violence that has racked the region for decades, a Palestinian Hamas militant was killed and four others were wounded on Monday by an Israeli missile strike in the northern Gaza Strip.
Having largely shunned personal Middle East diplomacy during his seven years in office, Bush will meet Olmert and Abbas separately on Monday at the White House, and then together on Tuesday in Annapolis.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has put her credibility on the line for the conference. She argues Annapolis would be an opportunity for Israel and Sunni Arabs to close ranks against regional "extremism"—an apparent allusion at least in part to Iran's nuclear program.
Iran has condemned Annapolis as a ruse for aiding Israel.
"All politicians in the world are aware that this conference is doomed to failure," Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said a televised speech in Tehran.
Clinton to Bush
The Annapolis bid follows years of failed U.S.-brokered efforts, the last by Bush's predecessor Bill Clinton, to end decades of conflict and forge a Palestinian state.
A senior aide to Abbas, Nabil Shaath, told Reuters that after Annapolis, Israelis and Palestinians would pick up from principles already agreed on during the Clinton administration.
"This allows us not to start from the very beginning but continue from something already agreed upon," Shaath said.
White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley said he expected both sides to recommit to a 2003 "road map" which provides benchmarks that include a cessation of Jewish settlement in the West Bank occupied by Israel in a 1967 war as well as a Palestinian crackdown on militants.
The United States argues the timing is right to relaunch negotiations despite the challenges faced by the key players.
Abbas in June lost control of the Gaza Strip to Hamas Islamists, who are not invited to Annapolis and Monday were holding an "alternative conference" to promote their opposition to peaceful coexistence with the Jewish state.
"Any decisions that emerge from this (Annapolis) conference ... will not be binding on the Palestinian people, only on those who signed them," Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh told reporters.
Olmert's domestic standing has been sapped by corruption scandals and Israel's Lebanon war, and he faces opposition to concessions from rightists in his fragile governing coalition.
Bush, weakened by the unpopular Iraq war, leaves office in January 2009, and the campaign to succeed him is in full swing.
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