Low expectations ahead of Rice-Olmert-Abbas talks

JERUSALEM, Feb 19 (Reuters) US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought to lower expectations ahead of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders today complicated by a deal to form a Palestinian unity government.

Rice said the meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would amount to ''informal discussions'' rather than negotiations.

''What I would consider a success ... is that we have gotten started,'' Rice said in an interview with Israel's Haaretz newspaper.

Rice spent yesterday shuttling between the Israelis and the Palestinians, trying to agree an agenda for the talks which have been overshadowed by the power-sharing pact between Abbas's Fatah party and the Islamist movement Hamas.

The United States has said it would like both sides to start talking about the tough issues, such as the contours of a new Palestinian state, refugees and the status of Jerusalem.

Abbas said they would explore ''the horizon for the peace process'', as well as discuss the new Fatah-Hamas coalition that was agreed in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, earlier this month after more than 90 Palestinians were killed in factional warfare.

But Israeli officials have said the main focus of the talks would be the unity government.

Olmert said yesterday Israel would boycott the coalition, which has yet to be formed, if Hamas did not meet international conditions to recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept existing interim peace agreements.

A joint news conference is not planned after the talks but officials from all sides have been working in recent days to come up with a statement that indicates a commitment to past agreements and a wish to move ahead.

Rice made clear that while the US administration reserved judgment, any government would have to meet principles laid down by the Quartet of West Asia mediators, comprising the United States, European Union, the United Nations and Russia.

''We are going to wait until there is a government but it should be absolutely clear to everybody that the Quartet principles are going to govern what decision we make,'' Rice said.

In the Haaretz interview, she said it was important to deal with those Palestinians, such as Abbas, who accept the mediators' conditions. The relationship with Abbas, Rice told the left-wing daily, ''is going to remain intact''.

But she said ''we have now the complications of being in an uncertain time, in an interim time before the Palestinian (unity) government is formed''.

Analysts were pessimistic the meeting would revive peacemaking stalled for the past six years, particularly as Olmert and Abbas are weak domestically.

''All these missions and visits that increase expectations will end with disappointment and frustration. I don't think this time will be the exception,'' Zakaria al-Qaq of al-Quds University said.

But he said the United States has few options other than to continue supporting Abbas. ''There is nobody else. The United States is stuck,'' he said.

Rice, for her part, said she did not want to push either side into making any deals they could not fulfil.

''It is extremely important that we have these discussions in a way that builds confidence and builds a sense of candour,'' she said of the meeting.

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