Bush launches last-ditch push for Mideast peace

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush meets Palestinian and Israeli leaders on Monday in a last-ditch push for Palestinian statehood before he leaves office in 14 months.

Expectations are low for three days of talks in Washington and nearby Annapolis, Maryland, because Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas all face political challenges at home.

In a boost to all three, Syria and Saudi Arabia promised to attend the Annapolis meeting on Tuesday, although Damascus will be sending a deputy minister rather than the foreign minister hoped for by U.S. organizers.

Washington says the hard work will begin only afterward, when both sides will tackle the issues at the core of the conflict -- Palestinian refugee rights, Jerusalem, security and the borders of a future Palestine.

"This conference will signal international support for the Israelis' and Palestinians' intention to commence negotiations on the establishment of a Palestinian state and the realization of peace between these two peoples," Bush said in welcoming the two Middle East leaders who arrived over the weekend.

Having largely shunned personal Middle East diplomacy during his seven years in office, Bush will meet Olmert and Abbas separately and together. They will be joined at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis by representatives of more than 40 countries.

The Annapolis bid follows years of failed U.S.-brokered efforts, the last by Bush's predecessor Bill Clinton, to end decades of conflict and forge a Palestinian state.

But doubts on Annapolis' prospects run deep on both sides.

A poll by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion found that while 67.6 percent of Palestinians support the new round of talks, 58.6 percent do not believe Olmert seeks a peace accord -- a mix of hope and suspicion mirrored in Israeli surveys.

FROM CLINTON TO BUSH

A senior aide to Abbas, Nabil Shaath, told Reuters that after Annapolis, Israelis and Palestinians would pick up from principles already agreed on during the Clinton administration.

"This allows us not to start from the very beginning but continue from something already agreed upon," Shaath said.

White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley said he expected both sides to recommit to a 2003 "road map" which provides benchmarks that include a cessation of Jewish settlement in the West Bank occupied by Israel in a 1967 war as well as a Palestinian crackdown on militants.

The United States argues the timing is right to relaunch negotiations despite the challenges faced by the key players.

Abbas in June lost control of the Gaza Strip to Hamas Islamists, who are not invited to Annapolis and have criticized it. Olmert is unpopular at home due to corruption scandals and Israel's costly Lebanon war, and faces opposition to concessions from right-wing members in his fragile governing coalition.

Bush, politically weakened by the unpopular Iraq war, leaves office in January 2009, and the campaign to succeed him is in full swing.

Underscoring the difficulties, the sides appear hard put to agree a joint document to present at Annapolis, though Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Hadley have both played that down.

Rice invited Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and top Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qurei for dinner on Sunday to try to seal a deal on the document. Livni's chief of staff, Aharon Abramovitch, said the advance talks were continuing into Monday.

"There are still unresolved issues, and (Monday) may be the last opportunity to overcome the issues," he told Israel Radio.

U.S. officials have said they expect negotiations on the document to continue right up until the Annapolis meeting.