WEST BANK: Condoleezza Rice assures Palestinians that Washington intends Middle East peace conference to help them to statehood

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a joint news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday (September 20), said a Mideast conference scheduled for November must be 'serious' and productive. "We discussed with Dr. Rice many issues. The main issue is the Peace agreement and the calls to encourage the International summit which will take place in mid November. We hope the summit will be a serious starting point leading to negotiations which will end the Israeli occupation of our lands and Arab lands, occupied in 1967," Abbas said during a joint news conference with Rice. After talks in the occupied West Bank with Abbas and in Israel, Rice gave no sign that any progress had been made in forging a common position that would be presented to the international gathering. She provided no details on who might attend the conference or whether the Israelis and the Palestinians would be able to draw up a document in time for the meeting, expected to take place in mid-November in the United States. "There are many that must be resolved but I believe that, with the work that President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert are doing together, and that their teams will do in preparation, to lay a foundation, so that we are all moving forward towards a Palestinian state that we will begin to address these issues. The international meeting has to be serious, it has to be substantive," Rice told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on her sixth trip to the region this year. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has been meeting regularly with Abbas ahead of the conference that Rice said must be "substantive", has cautioned against seeking more than a declaration of principles for establishing a Palestinian state. But Abbas has made clear he wants a deal that goes beyond previous agreements on the broad outlines of how the 60-year-old conflict, revolving around borders and the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees, can be resolved. The Palestinian leader told the news conference he wanted "an agreement with a clear timeframe" for implementation. Rice reiterated that U.S. President George W. Bush, who is set to meet Abbas on the sidelines of the U.N. General assembly next week, had no intention of convening a Middle East conference that would serve only as a "photo-op". Rice also sent condolences to the people of Lebanon, after a car bomb killed an anti-Syrian lawmaker and at least seven other people in Beirut on Wednesday (September 19). "We are sending our very deep condolences to the people of Lebanon. We spoke to (former Lebanese) President (Amil) Gemayel, the President and I did, about the brutal assassination of Parliamentarian Ghanem (a Lebanese lawmaker of the Christian anti-Syrian phalange who was killed in a car bomb in Beirut, Lebanon earlier on Thursday), It is a sad day for Lebanon, it is a sad day for all who value freedom, for all who value democracy, and the people of Lebanon will always have friends and those who respect their sovereignty and respect their right to live in peace and freedom," Rice said. Antoine Ghanem of the Christian Phalange party was killed in a Christian district of the capital in an attack his allies blamed on Damascus. Syria condemned the killing. After her talks with Abbas, Rice ended her two-day visit by seeing Olmert for a second time. A senior U.S. official said Rice had not gone to present a plan to Olmert but rather to "wrap up the visit".

ITN Source | September 20, 2007

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