( LatWp ) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday that a planned Middle East peace conference must be "substantive" to succeed, but she left the region without giving any sign of progress in setting an agenda.
Rice met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem, ending a two-day trip to prepare for the U.S.-sponsored conference in November.
Rice said the Bush administration would work "very urgently" with both leaders to ensure that the gathering in Washington yields progress toward ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rice said it was up to the two leaders and their negotiating teams to come up with a document that could serve as the basis for future peace talks.
"A successful meeting has to be one that is substantive and advances the cause of a Palestinian state," Rice said after meeting with Abbas in Ramallah.
Abbas said he would meet with President Bush next week during the U.N. General Assembly session in New York.
Israel and the Palestinians have conflicting goals for the November meeting, which U.S. officials have outlined vaguely since Bush announced it in July.
Palestinian officials seek an agreement laying out the framework for a peace deal with Israel, including a timetable. Members of Abbas' Fatah faction fear that a conference that did not produce such solid progress would strengthen the hand of the rival Hamas movement, which rules the Gaza Strip and expects the meeting to fail.
Arab regimes, such as that of Saudi Arabia, have warned they might not attend if the conference does not tackle core issues of the conflict, namely the borders of a future Palestinian state, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem.
Israel wants a more general "declaration of intentions." Olmert is concerned that an agreement spelling out what concessions Israel would make in a future peace accord could endanger his coalition. Israeli officials also are leery of striking any deals Abbas is too weak to uphold.
Olmert's centrist Kadima party fell into angry internal debate Thursday over reports suggesting he was prepared to cede parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinians.
Speaking before a party gathering late in the day, Olmert did not mention the Jerusalem issue. But he said Israel had a partner for peacemaking in Abbas, a relative moderate whose authority is in effect limited to the West Bank since Hamas seized sole control of the Gaza Strip by routing Fatah forces in June.
Olmert said a failure to make peace would strengthen radicals from Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the West Bank. The Israeli leader said he would ask his government Sunday to approve the release of an undisclosed number of Palestinian prisoners. Israel freed 255 prisoners as a gesture to Abbas in July.
In other developments, controversy brewed over remarks by opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu that appeared to provide the first official confirmation of some sort of Israeli incursion into Syria two weeks ago.
Netanyahu, a lawmaker and former prime minister, told Israeli television Wednesday night, "I was privy to the matter from the outset, and I gave my backing." He did not provide details.
Syria charged Sept. 6 that Israel had violated its airspace and dropped munitions. But officials in Israel have been tight-lipped and imposed strict censorship on Israeli journalists.
Netanyahu's remarks reportedly angered Olmert aides.
Some U.S. media reports have linked the Israeli air raid to suspicions that North Korea and Syria are cooperating on some type of nuclear facility. The Washington Post, citing an unnamed expert, reported last week that the airstrike appeared linked to the arrival three days earlier of a delivery from North Korea marked as cement.
Officials close to Syria's leadership have speculated that the incursion was designed to test air defenses for a possible Israeli attack on Iran that would require crossing Syrian airspace.