Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas pledged on Friday to work towards a rapid and meaningful agreement for a US conference in the wake of major disagreements.
The two leaders met for two and a half hours with their chief negotiators responsible for crafting a joint document for the conference - tentatively expected next month - in a bid to unblock the stalemate.
Despite outward signs of progress, Friday's talks were overshadowed by the deadliest day of Israeli-Palestinian violence in a month with five Palestinian fighters killed and two Israeli soldiers lightly wounded in the Gaza Strip.
"They agreed to try to reach, as soon as possible, a meaningful statement," Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisin said after the lunchtime talks, the second Abbas-Olmert meeting this month, ended in Jerusalem talks after a seven-year hiatus.
"Both sides emphasised the commitment to implementing the phases of the roadmap as part of the statement that they are drafting ahead of the meeting" in the United States, Eisin told reporters. The internationally drafted peace blueprint has made next to no progress since it was adopted in June 2003, and has already missed its first deadline for creating an independent Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel.
Abbas and Olmert "agreed to immediately and mutually implement commitments laid out for each side in the first phase of the roadmap," senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told a news conference in the West Bank.
Israel wants the Palestinians to carry out immediately the first phase of the roadmap, which calls for an end to violence and on Israel to freeze Jewish settlement activity and dismantle outposts built since March 2001.
The content of the document, which is supposed to outline a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has been a source of serious disagreement although Eisin described the atmosphere at Friday's talks as "very good." Erakat said Abbas and Olmert agreed their teams would conduct "ongoing and intense" discussions to reach the joint document. Israel said the negotiating teams would meet again next Wednesday.