US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice assured Palestinians on Thursday that Washington intended a Middle East peace conference to put them firmly on the road towards statehood but gave no specifics.
Rice also gave no sign, after talks in the occupied West Bank with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and in Israel, that any progress had been made in forging a common position that would be presented to the international gathering.
She provided no details on who might attend the conference or whether the Israelis and the Palestinians would be able to draw up a document in time for the meeting, expected to take place in mid-November in the United States. "What kind of document comes out of these discussions is something they will have to work out," said Rice, adding that she hoped it would lead to "serious negotiations for the establishment of a Palestinian state as soon as possible".
Rice, making her sixth trip to the region this year, told a news conference: "I will work, I know that the president and (Israeli) Prime Minister (Ehud) Olmert will work, and that their teams will work very aggressively, very urgently, to lay the groundwork for a successful meeting."
Olmert, who has been meeting regularly with Abbas ahead of the conference that Rice said must be "substantive", has cautioned against seeking more than a declaration of principles for establishing a Palestinian state.
But Abbas has made clear he wants a deal that goes beyond previous agreements on the broad outlines of how the 60-year-old conflict, revolving around borders and the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees, can be resolved. The Palestinian leader told the news conference he wanted "an agreement with a clear timeframe" for implementation.
Rice reiterated that US President George W. Bush, who is set to meet Abbas on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly next week, had no intention of convening a Middle East conference that would serve only as a "photo-op". "We have many other things to do," said Rice. The United States is bogged down in the war in Iraq.
After her talks with Abbas, Rice ended her two-day visit by seeing Olmert for a second time. A senior US official said Rice had not gone to present a plan to Olmert but rather to "wrap up the visit".
At the news conference, Abbas said Israel's decision on Wednesday to declare the Hamas-run Gaza Strip an "enemy entity" in the wake of frequent cross-border rocket attacks would "complicate further an already tense situation on the ground".
The West Bank-based Palestinian government has already said it wants Washington to press Israel not to cut energy and other supplies to the 1.5 million people of Gaza, despite hostility between Abbas's Fatah faction and rival group Hamas which seized control of the coastal territory in fighting in June. Rice, who was not told in advance of the decision, said Washington shared Israeli opposition to Hamas but expected humanitarian supplies to continue.
Rice expects to return to the region early next month after a round of meetings, including with Arab leaders and the quartet of Middle East peace brokers, in New York next week to try and push the peace process forward.