The United States announced last night it will host a Middle East peace conference later this month in Maryland, which Washington hopes will launch formal negotiations to create a Palestinian state.
In addition to Israel and the Palestinians, the United States invited about 40 countries, including Arab states Syria and Saudi Arabia which have no relations with Israel, to the meeting on November 27th at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, the State Department said.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack
Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip and is viewed by Washington as a terrorist organization, will be excluded from the conference.
The meeting, President George W. Bush's most intense effort to resolve the six-decade-old conflict, faces many obstacles. They include the political weakness of both Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, struggling to maintain control of the West Bank against the Hamas challenge, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
"The Annapolis conference will signal broad international support for the Israeli and Palestinian leaders' courageous efforts, and will be a launching point for negotiations leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state," US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
It is unclear how far the conference will go in tackling the core issues - borders, security, settlements, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees - that have defeated previous efforts to end the conflict.
"This is but the beginning of a very, long road," former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said last night. "I think the expectation (from the conference) should be pretty low."
Prior to the announcement, the Bush administration sought Saudi Arabia's support, seen as vital to getting Arabs to get behind US peacemaking efforts. Mr Bush personally called Saudi King Abdullah, a White House spokesman said.
Saudi Arabia's participation could help Mr Abbas compromise while also helping Mr Olmert sell any deal to Israelis by holding out the prospect of a wider peace with the Arab world.
US officials hope the talks will eventually lead to a Palestinian state even though officials from the two sides and US diplomats working with them have yet to produce even an agreement on roughly how such negotiations, the first in seven years, are likely to proceed following the conference.
US officials said the two sides were making progress on a joint document they hope to present at Annapolis but it was unclear if this would provide details on the core issues.