Rice seeks peace momentum in West Asia visit

Jerusalem, Aug 2: Condoleezza Rice and Israeli officials said they would seize new opportunities to restart peace negotiations with the Palestinians following the dismissal of the Hamas-led government.

The US secretary of state, who meets Palestinian leaders in the West Bank today after her talks with the Israeli government in Jerusalem, also won possibly crucial support from Saudi Arabia for a US-backed West Asia peace conference.

Washington, grappling with crises in Iraq and in relations with Iran, is keen for progress towards peace in the region.

But Israeli leaders indicated that support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who last month lost control of the Gaza Strip to the Hamas Islamists, did not mean accepting his call for talks on all issues needed to establish a Palestinian state.

''This is a time to seize opportunities and it is a time to proceed in a prepared and careful way as one does not want to miss opportunities because of a lack of preparation,'' Rice said yesterday.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told a joint news conference: ''We are not going to miss the opportunity to promote a dialogue with Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian government.'' But she indicated that, while it was important to put ''significant'' issues on the table, Israel was not yet ready to accept Abbas's proposal to negotiate ''final-status'' matters.

''Sometimes it is not wise to put the most sensitive issues first,'' she said when asked whether Israel was prepared to look at the most difficult hurdles to Palestinian statehood such as its future borders and the fate of Jerusalem and of refugees.

Riyad al-Malki, the Palestinian information minister, said his government would ask Rice ''to put pressure on the Israeli side to respond to our security needs'', which he defined as a withdrawal of Israeli forces from positions around major West Bank cities and an expanded amnesty for wanted Palestinians.

Israeli Moves

An Israeli spokesman said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Rice of measures Israel had already taken to bolster Abbas since he severed ties with Hamas after it routed the Western-backed forces of his secular Fatah movement in Gaza seven weeks ago.

Having released funds to Abbas as part of the lifting of international sanctions on the West Bank, freed some Palestinian prisoners and amnestied some wanted Fatah militants, Olmert was prepared to go further and discuss handing over security control of some areas now under Israeli occupation, he added.

But, the spokesman said, Olmert stressed Israel wanted to be sure ''that terror will not emerge in those areas again''. ''Those security concerns have not yet been satisfied,'' he added.

Rice is expected to sign over the first part of a more than million package to help strengthen Abbas's security forces.

Israel and its allies are keen to help Abbas show that a conciliatory approach is better than the confrontation espoused by Hamas. Olmert reaffirmed to Rice his view that ''Hamas needs to be kept out of the game'', his spokesman, David Baker, said.

Abbas and Olmert are due to meet again next week on Monday in Jericho, according to a senior US official.

The official cautioned against expecting rapid results: ''This needs a systematic approach and it is not going to be a quick one, it will take time,'' he told reporters, though he added: ''There seems to be a different spirit here.'' Sceptics question whether Abbas can deliver a deal when a third of the likely population of a Palestinian state is under hostile Hamas control in Gaza and whether Olmert can do likewise given his single-digit popularity rating with Israeli voters.

Rice flew to Israel from Saudi Arabia, where Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said Riyadh welcomed US President George W.Bush

Bush's initiative to hold a Middle East peace conference later this year. No date or venue has been set.

''There is an international movement (for peace) Israel should respond to these pressures,'' Prince Saud said, without promising that Saudi Arabia would attend the conference.

Olmert said he hoped many Arab countries would come.

A senior Israeli government official said Israel saw the Saudis' conditional support for a meeting as raising pressure on Israel to extend the scope of discussions with the Palestinians.

''They're trying to force the Americans to get something more out of us,'' the official said, adding that Israel was ready to talk about borders but not the status of Jerusalem or refugees.

Prince Saud, in another nod to the United States, announced that Saudi Arabia was exploring opening an embassy in Baghdad.

Reuters>