Israeli and Palestinian leaders arrived in Washington today two days before a conference in nearby Annapolis that they hope will launch talks to end 60 years of conflict and create a Palestinian state.
Tuesday's meeting in Maryland, where Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert will be joined by many Arab ministers, aims to agree a resumption of negotiations on a Palestinian peace with Israel.
The talks come seven years after a summit at Camp David hosted by US President George Bush's predecessor Bill Clinton collapsed.
In a boost for the organisers, diplomats said Syria, long at daggers drawn with Israel and Washington, had agreed to attend.
"We consider the Annapolis conference a launching pad for final status negotiations that will lead to the realisation of the Palestinian people's dream of establishing a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital," Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdainah said after the Palestinian leader's arrival.
Mr Olmert, who also landed in Washington today, told reporters on his plane before leaving that he hoped Annapolis would launch serious negotiations on "all the core issues that will result in a solution of two states for two peoples".
In Jerusalem, Israeli police set up roadblocks to try to avert violence after a security alert. Israeli troops killed three Palestinian gunmen in raids in Gaza and the West Bank.
Like President Clinton in his final year in office, Mr Bush hopes he can clinch a deal before he steps down in January 2009, a feat that could burnish his administration's reputation in the Middle East after years of controversy over the US occupation of Iraq.