Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said today he was uncertain after talks in Washington this week that a peace deal with Israel was possible this year, but vowed to pursue negotiations.
"The gaps between us and Israel on final status issues are wide. Will we reach a deal by the end of the year? I don't know, we will see," he said in an interview as he flew from Washington to Sharm el-Sheikh for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
"But my option is to negotiate. I will continue to negotiate until the very end," Mr Abbas said, after aides said he had been disappointed by his talks with US officials.
He said an agreement was possible only if Israel adopted "more realistic positions" in the negotiations. He added that, if no deal was reached, the Palestinians would find themselves in a difficult position and he would coordinate his next move with the Arabs and fellow Palestinian leaders.
Mr Abbas said President George W. Bush assured him on Thursday the United States would be more involved in the coming months to try to bridge the gap.
Mr Bush, due to visit Israel next month, sponsored a new round of talks starting in Annapolis in November and has set a goal of a Middle East peace accord before he steps down in January.
Mr Abbas said he told Mr Bush and other senior US officials that he did not want them to present their own compromise document in the event of the two sides failing to clinch a deal.
Palestinian aides said Mr Abbas did not want a repetition of the Camp David talks in 2000, hosted by President Bill Clinton, which brought together Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Many blamed Mr Arafat, who turned down a package proposed by Mr Clinton, for the failure to reach a deal.
Mr Abbas, weakened by the Hamas Islamists' violent takeover of Gaza Strip last year, said he would only accept a deal that could succeed in a referendum.
"We have discussed all the final issues with the Americans in detail. I told them we do not want them to present their own ideas for a solution because it will be difficult for us to reject them -- and it would be even more difficult to accept them," Mr Abbas said.
Negotiations between Mr Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on final status issues have so far little to show. Both leaders face stiff domestic opposition to concessions, although each has powerful domestic incentives to try to present at least the semblance of an accord in the coming months.
Mr Abbas's optimism that a deal could be reached this year suffered a setback during his Washington visit.
Senior aides said he and his delegation were alarmed that, after detailed talks on core issues, they might be offered less land than they were seeking on which to establish a Palestinian state.
The negotiators are discussing sensitive permanent status issues that would shape a future Palestinian state, such as the fate of Jerusalem, borders, Jewish settlements and Palestinian refugees. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to visit the Middle East in a week's time, before Mr Bush's trip.
Mr Abbas wants a deal that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, Palestinian lands seized by Israel during the 1967 Middle East war. Mr Olmert is seeking a vaguer list of "understandings".