24 January 2004	Saturday	01 Zilhaj 1424

WASHINGTON, Jan 23: Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said on Thursday that Middle East peace efforts were "at a bit of a stalemate" as two senior US diplomats prepared for a mission to the region to press Israel and the Palestinians to resume talks.

Richard Armitage placed blame for the lack of progress on the US-backed roadmap on both Israel and the Palestinians, saying neither side was meeting its obligations under the once-vaunted, but now floundering plan.

"We're having a great deal of difficulty," Mr Armitage said in an interview with Egyptian television. "The administration of Abu Ala, (Palestinian) Prime Minister (Ahmed) Qorei, is not able or willing to make any tough stands on the question of security and on the other side, the Israelis are intent on not compromising either," he said.

"So we're at a bit of a stalemate," Mr Armitage said, moving quickly to dispel concerns in the Arab world that the United States no longer saw the peace process as a priority.

Such concerns were fuelled by President George Bush's failure to mention Middle East peace efforts in his State of the Union address on Tuesday. "We haven't given up our efforts," he said, noting the upcoming mission of David Satterfield, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, and John Wolf, chief of the US team monitoring roadmap compliance.

"They're going to walk around, monitor the situation and come back and report," the deputy secretary said. "We continue to be fully engaged." Earlier on Thursday, deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said the pair would be travelling to the region early next week.

David Satterfield and John Wolf's mission comes at a particularly delicate time for Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts. Neither side has made more than incremental progress in meeting their commitments to the roadmap, which both signed up to in June.

Those include the Palestinians reining in militant groups and the Israelis improving humanitarian conditions for the Palestinians and halting settlement activity in the West Bank and Gaza.

Satterfield and Wolf are "going to make clear ... that in order to make progress on the roadmap and the president's 2002 vision of two states, both sides need to meet their responsibilities and obligations," Mr Ereli said on Wednesday. -AFP