Rice Meets With Abbas on Israel

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Secretary of State Rice heard from the Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, today about his detailed expectations for a American-hosted Mideast conference, which differ sharply from Israel's bare-bones position.

The Palestinian Arabs want to formulate a joint document with Israel, which would at least give an outline of how to solve the key disputes in the conflict. The document must be completed before the start of the conference, which would then be used as a launching pad for a resumption of peace talks, the Palestinian Arabs say.

In contrast, Israel says the conference could be held without such a document in hand, and staunchly opposes the Palestinian Arab idea of setting a timeline for starting and completing negotiations.

Ms. Rice is on a four-day shuttle mission, trying to create some common ground ahead of the meeting. A State Department official hinted yesterday that the conference, expected to take place in Annapolis, Md., in late November, might be postponed because of the gaps between the two sides.

Abbas aides said they were concerned that Ms. Rice cautioned over the weekend against expecting breakthroughs during her meetings with Israeli and Palestinian Arab leaders. She also plans a trip to Cairo and talks in London with King Abdullah II of Jordan.

"With her statement yesterday, Dr. Rice reduced the Palestinian hopes for the conference," an Abbas adviser, Nabil Amr, said. "We didn't expect her to come with this direction. The U.S. is a party to this conference, and we expect it to exert efforts to make it succeed."