Rice, Olmert meet in bid to revive peace efforts

Jerusalem, Jan 15: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert today one day after she promised a bigger American push for a Palestinian state.

Rice is pressing Olmert to take steps that could help bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah in his power struggle with Hamas Islamists who control the government.

But just as Rice's meeting with Olmert was getting under way, Haaretz newspaper reported that Israel planned to build 44 residential units in Maale Adumim, Israel's largest settlement, on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

The US-backed ''road map'' peace plan calls for halting such construction on land Palestinians seek for a state. Israel asserts that such construction is part of natural growth.

Under US pressure, Olmert held his first formal meeting with Abbas on December 23.

Rice is expected to press Olmert to fulfil pledges made at that meeting to remove roadblocks in the occupied West Bank and release 100 million dollars in withheld Palestinian tax funds to Abbas.

Haaretz said Olmert will tell Rice that he is prepared to take ''unprecedented steps'' if the Palestinian government, led by Hamas since March, would agree to recognise Israel, renounce violence and abide by interim peace deals.

Israeli and Palestinian officials said Rice's visit, her eighth to the region during her two years as secretary of state, was meant to test the waters for a more concerted peace push in the coming months.

Rice, who held talks yesterday with Abbas and Jordan's King Abdullah, promised to deepen U S involvement in the peace process, which collapsed in 2000.

Rice offered no details in public about her future plans.

She has shied away from high-speed West Asia diplomacy in the past.

Israeli officials said Washington was exploring several options including the creation of a Palestinian state with temporary borders, an idea proposed in a U.S.-backed peace plan known as the ''road map'' but repeatedly rejected by Abbas.

Abbas has called for new elections in a challenge to Hamas, and Washington hopes the Palestinian public will rally around the moderate president if he can demonstrate progress towards statehood.

The United States is also seeking to strengthen Abbas militarily by pouring 86 million dollars into helping train and equip his presidential guard.

Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction, trounced Fatah in parliamentary elections a year ago and is building up its own heavily armed ''executive force''.

European and Arab allies have long pressed Washington to get more involved in the peace process.

Critics say Washington is responding now only because it needs help in the region in containing Iraq's slide into sectarian carnage and Iran's nuclear programme.

After her meeting with Olmert, Rice will travel to Egypt, followed by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as well as Germany and Britain.

Reuters