MIDDLE EAST: Condoleezza Rice meets Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak in Jerusalem at the start of four-day visit to Middle East to help parties prepare for peace conference

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak in Jerusalem on Sunday (October 14), as she began a series of meetings in the Mideast ahead of an expected November peace conference to be held in the United States. Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams have been meeting to hammer out a joint document addressing "core issues" for the international gathering expected to be held late next month in Annapolis, Maryland. Israel has sought, at this stage, to address in general terms the most divisive aspects of the Middle East conflict -- borders and the future of the holy city of Jerusalem, as well as millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who lost control of the Gaza Strip to Hamas Islamists in June, has been pressing for a document with a timetable for dealing with those issues and moving Palestinians closer to statehood. Rice is to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem and travel to the occupied West Bank to see Abbas during her four-day visit, which will include trips to Egypt and Jordan. During her previous visit last month to Israel and the West Bank, Rice urged both sides to draft a document laying the basis for serious negotiations at the conference, which Washington hopes will attract wide Arab participation. Israeli, Palestinian and Western officials said last week real progress would depend on narrowing differences over the fate of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees. Western officials have told Reuters Olmert has privately signalled a willingness to consider handing over "90-something" percent of the occupied West Bank and all of the Gaza Strip, with additional land swaps, as part of a final peace deal. That may put the two sides within a few percentage points of consensus on the territory issue ahead of the Annapolis meeting.

ITN Source | October 14, 2007

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