August 03, 2007	Friday	Rajab 18, 1428

RAMALLAH: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrapped up a regional tour on Thursday, telling Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas that Israel was ready to discuss “fundamental issues” to advance stalled Middle East peace efforts.

“The prime minister (Ehud Olmert) said to me that he will support new discussions with you and that he is ready to discuss the fundamental issues that will lead to negotiations soon for the creation of a Palestinian state,” Rice told Abbas at a joint news conference in Ramallah.

When asked to elaborate, she said: “I think the word fundamental speaks for itself... I think the desire to move towards a two-state solution seems to be there on both sides.” It was not clear, however, whether Olmert had agreed to discuss “core issues” as the Palestinians have pushed for months — the thorniest problems of the decades-long conflict such as the status of Jerusalem and refugees.

Rice was speaking at the tail-end of a four-day regional tour aimed at building on diplomatic momentum since Hamas's violent seizure of the Gaza Strip in mid-June, and to lay the groundwork for an international peace conference called for by US President George W. Bush for later this year.

She left for Washington shortly after her Ramallah meetings.

Rice said regional players had told her they wanted to ensure a meeting that was “substantive, that will be meaningful and that would really advance the two-state solution.”In Saudi Arabia, she secured a pledge from the regional Muslim powerhouse behind a recently revived Arab peace plan that it would seriously consider attending the conference.

Attendance by Saudi Arabia, which does not have diplomatic relations with Israel and has not been to peace talks involving it for more than a decade, would mark a victory for US efforts to jumpstart the dormant peace process.

Israeli officials told Rice they wanted to agree a framework on core issues before the conference.

“We must reach an agreement with the Palestinians on the framework of the final status issues, which will guarantee a clear diplomatic and security horizon for both sides,” a senior Israeli official quoted Haim Ramon, minister without portfolio, as telling Rice.

The conference is expected to take place in the autumn after Jewish and Muslim holidays in mid-October, a senior US official said.

Abbas did not rule out a framework agreement, but stressed that “the most important thing is to achieve results, or to know what those results will be.”The Palestinian president is due to meet Olmert next week, with the US hopeful the encounter will be productive, a senior US official said.

The bloody ouster of forces loyal to the moderate Abbas from Gaza by the Islamists of Hamas fuelled new diplomatic drives to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, dormant for more than six years.

Since the takeover the US and Israel have sought to bolster Abbas in his West Bank powerbase while isolating Hamas, boycotted by the West as a terror group.

Hamas slammed the Rice visit as further widening the Palestinian divide.

“Rice didn't come to establish a Palestinian state,” spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said. “She came to support one Palestinian party against another one and to deepen the internal Paleastinian gap.” Olmert told the US secretary that the Islamists needed to be “kept out of the game” of the new diplomatic peace push.

In Ramallah, Rice also met premier Salam Fayyad, a respected US-educated economist whom Abbas appointed after the Hamas takeover, and the rest of his government as a show of support for the cabinet made up of independents.

Rice and Fayyad signed a “framework agreement for security assistance” for more than 80 million dollars Washington has pledged to boost Palestinian defence needs.

Hamas dismissed the deal, saying in a statement that “Rice's millions will not bring down Hamas.” US officials said they detected a new sense of hope in the region for the settlement of the Palestinian question, which has dogged Middle East security for decades.

“People do realise that there is an opportunity here and discussions now should take advantage of that and how to maximize the results,” one senior US official said.

Rice travelled with Defence Secretary Robert Gates to the Middle East, with the pair visiting Egypt and Saudi Arabia together before splitting up: Gates went on to Kuwait and then the United Arab Emirates, while Rice headed to Israel and the Palestinian territories.—AFP