Mideast summit ends with vague promise

By Sue Pleming

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli-Palestinian talks hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ended on Monday with little sign of progress on reviving long-stalled peace negotiations beyond a vague promise to meet again.

The meeting, attended by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, focused partly on a unity deal between the Fatah and Hamas groups that has calmed factional fighting but cast a new cloud over peace prospects.

"All three of us affirmed our commitment to a two-state solution (and) agreed that a Palestinian state cannot be born of violence and terror," said Rice, reading out a joint statement after the more than two-hour meeting in a Jerusalem hotel.

She said the two leaders "reiterated their acceptance of previous agreements and obligations", including a U.S.-backed peace road map charting reciprocal steps toward a Palestinian state, and that Olmert and Abbas would meet again soon.

A senior U.S. official said the Olmert-Abbas meeting would take place "within weeks" and Rice said she would also return soon. An Abbas aide said joint committees would meet in 10 days to prepare for his talks with Olmert.

There was no joint news conference after the meeting and Abbas and Olmert did not appear with Rice when she read the statement.

"It didn't seem like the right way to end this meeting," Rice told reporters traveling with her of the decision not to hold a news conference.

When the meeting was first announced last month, expectations were high that it would look at the tough, final issues, such as the status of Jerusalem, the return of refugees and the contours of a Palestinian state.

Rice declined to provide details of the discussions but said they had looked at the "political horizon" as well as concerns over a deal Abbas's Fatah group signed with the Islamist movement Hamas to establish a unity government, an accord that fell short of international demands on policy toward Israel.

"I think the real value here was that they sat down here to talk to each other," Rice said.

A senior Palestinian official who attended the summit, told Reuters: "Olmert told Abbas during the meeting, 'you cheated me' by reaching the deal with Hamas. President Abbas responded (by saying), 'you gave me nothing and didn't keep your promises.'"

Olmert's office declined to comment.

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Olmert said in broadcast remarks to his Kadima party after the meeting that Israel and the United States agreed to boycott the Palestinian government, which has yet to be formed, unless it renounced violence, recognized Israel and accepted existing interim peace accords.

Rice reiterated it was the position of the "Quartet" of Middle East mediators trying to restart peace talks stalled for the past six years that these three conditions be met.