By DPA
Jerusalem : US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that she is optimistic that an upcoming US-hosted Middle East conference could be successful.
But as she wrapped up four days of intense shuttle diplomacy in the region, the sides repeated that the gaps between them remained wide, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned that he would not attend the conference “at any cost”.
“There is very hard work to do,” Rice Wednesday told a joint news conference with her Israeli counterpart, Tzipi Livni. “This is the beginning of the process, not the end of it.”
But she added: “What I’ve really come away with at this trip is the seriousness of both the Palestinians and the Israelis.”
But an aide to Abbas earlier accused Israel of being “not serious” about the conference, because of its refusal to negotiate a far-reaching agreement ahead of it that would include a “clear timetable” for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Israel “is placing obstacles on the way to resuming negotiations”, said Nabil Abu Rudeineh.
An exact date or location for the Middle East conference has not yet been set, though it has been reported that it will take place in late November in Annapolis, Maryland.
US President George W. Bush echoed Rice’s remarks at a news conference in Washington Wednesday, saying the international community must follow through on promises so Palestinians can “see there’s a serious, focussed effort to step up a state”.
Bush said he was pleased by the progress that has been made so far in talks between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and he was certain the conference would be “serious and substantive”.
Abbas said: “We should not waste any more time and then say that we would go to the conference at any cost. This cannot happen. Therefore, we insist and we talked to Rice and about how short time is.
“We want a document that will help us to start negotiations and there has to be a timetable to reach results,” Abbas told reporters, emerging from an almost three-hour one-on-one parley with Rice in Ramallah, before departing on a tour of predominantly Muslim states in south-east Asia and Arab countries to brief them on his talks with Israel.
Olmert, however, expressed strong opposition to a timetable to his cabinet Sunday and Livni said Wednesday that Israel wants to reach an understanding with the Palestinians on only those core issues of their mutual common conflict on which they find common ground, while leaving others for a later stage.
“Our goal is to reach an understanding on the widest possible common ground,” she said. “If we cannot bridge the gap on some of the core issues, this is not because I’m not willing to discuss it,” said Livni.
In addition to a timetable, Abbas wants the document to address all of the core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including Jerusalem, borders and the Palestinian refugee problem.
But Olmert, wary of a domestic coalition crisis, wants to limit himself to a non-binding, more vaguely-worded and less-detailed statement that touches on only some of these issues.
Rice backed the Israeli premier when she told reporters en route to a one-day visit to Cairo Tuesday that it was “just fine” if “there will be some things about which they (the sides) won’t be ready to enter into detail”.
She also rejected the idea of a timetable for creating an independent state.
According to Israeli media reports, a key, highly sensitive issue Olmert wants to leave out of the document is Jerusalem. Instead, he wants it to mention only that the disputed city’s future will be dealt with in future negotiations, the reports say.