MIDDLE EAST:Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas agreed yesterday to create teams to tackle Palestinian statehood issues, a move both sides described as a step towards more substantive talks.
But Israel cautioned against expecting major final status breakthroughs, either before or during a US-sponsored conference planned for mid to late November.
Washington is pushing Israel to make tangible progress to avoid disappointment at the conference, which western diplomats said could culminate in an agreement to relaunch full-blown peace negotiations.
After their three-hour meeting, Mr Olmert and Mr Abbas "emphasised the importance of their joint commitment to a two-state solution and decided to appoint teams in order to work towards achieving this goal," said Mr Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin.
Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said the appointment of the teams was a "significant development", but offered few details.
"They [Olmert and Abbas] now believe it is time to take it to the next level, to engage on the substance of how to achieve a two-state solution," Mr Erekat said.
The Israeli leader is seeking a broadbrush "declaration of principles" for the November conference. Mr Abbas wants an explicit "framework" agreement with a timeline for implementation.
It is still unclear to what extent Mr Olmert is prepared to meet Mr Abbas's appeal to delve deeply into the core "final status" issues of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and the borders of a Palestinian state.
A senior Palestinian official close to Mr Abbas said Washington was exerting "immense pressure" on both sides to come to the conference with an agreed document.
Mr Olmert and Mr Abbas have been meeting regularly since Hamas Islamists seized control of the Gaza Strip in June and are keen to show progress ahead of next week's visit of US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice.
Ms Eisin said the two leaders had agreed to meet again within two weeks. An opinion poll found that only 26 per cent of the Palestinians it surveyed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip expect the Middle East conference to succeed.
The findings by the independent Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research showed that a final peace deal, mirroring a US proposal in 2000 to establish a Palestinian state in nearly all of the West Bank and in the entire Gaza Strip, would be supported by just 46 per cent of Palestinians.
The bilateral meetings and the conference are part of a US-led campaign to shore up the Fatah leader's hold on power in the occupied West Bank and to isolate Hamas in Gaza.
Mr Olmert has also been weakened politically since last year's war in Lebanon, raising doubts among Israelis and Palestinians over his ability to deliver on any peace promises. Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad told his cabinet after the meeting, which he also attended, that the time had come to "move from the stage of verbal discussions to the drafting of proposals", a Palestinian official said. -