US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas today, seeking to bolster the moderate leader in his power struggle with Hamas and find a way to restart peace talks.
Rice is seeking to accelerate the stalled peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, and Israeli officials said she was exploring options that could include the creation of a Palestinian state with temporary borders.
The United States wants Abbas to emerge victorious in his showdown with the ruling Hamas Islamists, a group Washington labels a terrorist entity. The United States plans to pour $86 million into helping train and equip Abbas's presidential guard.
Hamas receives aid from Iran and other Islamist allies, and is building up its own "executive force".
Rice met Israeli ministers on Saturday but said she had not come to the region with a specific plan to jumpstart Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations that collapsed in 2000.
Palestinians officials said Abbas wanted to hear what Rice had to say, but they repeated the president's opposition to any talk of creating a Palestinian state with temporary borders.
Rice and Abbas met in the West Bank city of Ramallah and planned to hold a news conference later in the day.