Bush: Hopeful for Mideast peace deal by end of term

By Tabassum Zakaria

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush, seeking a Middle East peace legacy that eluded his predecessors, said on Tuesday he is still hopeful an Israeli-Palestinian deal can be reached by the time he leaves office in January.

Bush will encourage Israeli and Palestinian leaders to move forward when he meets them separately in Israel and Egypt during a May 8-13 trip that includes a visit to Saudi Arabia.

Negotiations have bogged down since Bush hosted a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, in November where both sides pledged to try to reach a peace deal by the end of his term.

PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, after meeting with Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week in Washington, came away disappointed and pessimistic about prospects for a deal this year, according to aides.

Bush offered a more optimistic assessment. "I'm still hopeful we'll get an agreement by the end of my presidency," he said at a news conference at the White House.

He accused Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, of trying to undermine peace efforts. But he avoided direct criticism of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who met the Palestinian group's leadership to try to pull them into peace talks with Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Bush made clear he would not have similar engagement with Hamas, an Islamist group that advocates Israel's destruction and which the United States and the European Union consider a terrorist organization.

"They are a significant problem to world peace, or Middle Eastern peace. And that's the reason I'm not talking to them," Bush said.

The road to a peace agreement is strewn with obstacles.

Abbas, whose mainstream Fatah faction lost control of the Gaza Strip to Hamas in June, and Olmert face strong opposition at home to making concessions.

The fragile peace process has stalled amid Israeli settlement expansion plans and violence in and around Gaza, where Hamas cross-border rocket fire has drawn a tough Israeli military response.

Bush also accused Syria of helping Hamas and said there were "rumors" that Iran was also aiding the group.

"So when you want to talk about peace being difficult in the Middle East, it's going to be difficult, but it's even made more difficult by entities like Hamas," he said.

Bush, whose stated goal is the creation of a Palestinian state co-existing peacefully with Israel, said of his conversations with Abbas and Olmert that "the attitude is good. People do understand the importance of getting a state defined."