Israeli and Palestinian leaders arrived in Washington yesterday two days before a conference in nearby Annapolis that they hope will launch talks to end 60 years of conflict and create a Palestinian state.
Tomorrow's meeting in Maryland, where Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will be joined by many Arab ministers, aims to agree a resumption of negotiations on a Palestinian peace with Israel.
The talks come seven years after a summit at Camp David hosted by President George W. Bush's predecessor Bill Clinton collapsed.
In a boost for the organizers, diplomats said Syria, long at daggers drawn with Israel and Washington, had agreed to attend.
"We consider the Annapolis conference a launching pad for final status negotiations that will lead to the realization of the Palestinian people's dream of establishing a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital," Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdainah said after the Palestinian leader's arrival.
Olmert, who also landed in Washington yesterday, told reporters on his plane before leaving that he hoped Annapolis would launch serious negotiations on "all the core issues that will result in a solution of two states for two peoples".
In Jerusalem, Israeli police set up roadblocks to try to avert violence after a security alert. Israeli troops killed three Palestinian gunmen in raids in Gaza and the West Bank.
Like Clinton in his final year in office, Bush hopes he can clinch a deal before he steps down in January 2009, a feat that could burnish his administration's reputation in the Middle East after years of controversy over the US occupation of Iraq.
However, all sides have played down the prospect of any breakthrough at Annapolis or afterwards. Abbas, Olmert and Bush all face severe limitations on implementing any agreement over borders and the fate of Palestinian refugees and Jerusalem.
Limitations
Abbas has lost control of the Gaza Strip to Iranian-linked Hamas Islamists, Olmert is unpopular with voters, not least due to corruption accusations, and faces opposition to concessions within his own coalition. Bush has barely a year left in power.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have so far failed to agree on a joint document on how to proceed with negotiations.
Abu Rdainah said they would meet again in Washington later yesterday and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told reporters on Olmert's plane she expected the two sides to agree on a document to "launch the (peace) process, not solve (the conflict)."
Source: China Daily/Agencies
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