LUXOR, Egypt (AP) - Hoping to breathe life into moribund peace efforts, the United States will gather Israeli and Palestinian leaders to discuss an eventual independent Palestinian state, President Bush's top diplomat said Monday.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also asked Arab allies to help support the fragile government in Iraq, on whose success much of Bush's new plan to turn the war around will depend.
The three-way U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian meeting would be the first among the main parties thought necessary to draft any settlement in the six-decade-long dispute. It represents more direct involvement from a U.S. administration that has sometimes viewed Mideast peacemaking as a fool's errand.
"The parties haven't talked about these issues for a long time," Rice told reporters following a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in this southern Egyptian town following a three-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
"It's been at least six years since they talked about these issues," Rice said. "It seems wise to begin this ... informal discussion, to just really sit and talk about the issues. "
Diplomats described a preliminary session meant to build confidence after years of fighting and rhetorical sniping.
It is designed to strengthen Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his internal power struggle with Palestinian Islamic militants and to offer Palestinians a glimpse of their future that makes negotiating with Israel seem worthwhile.
Instead of talking about the daily frictions and threats that define the deeply mistrustful Israeli-Palestinian relationship, an informal session could look ahead to what Rice has called broader issues, and certainly more attractive ones, U.S. officials said.
"It's very clear what we mean by 'broader issues,'" Rice said. "We mean what would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state."
Recent prospects for Mideast peace have looked dim, with the Hamas radicals in charge of much of the Palestinian government, street clashes among the Palestinian factions, a Western aid cutoff and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's weakened political position following Israel's summer war in Lebanon.
Abbas and Olmert agreed to attend the session, to be held in three or four weeks, during their separate weekend meetings with Rice, U.S. officials said. Rice would represent the United States, with the thought that Bush could participate at a future session if initial discussions go well.
In Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert confirmed the planned session with Rice and Abbas.
Saeb Erekat, an aide to Abbas, could not confirm whether Abbas would attend, but said "in principle" the Palestinians are prepared to take part. He praised Rice's attentiveness during a session with Abbas in his Ramallah headquarters Sunday.
"She reflected seriousness, interest," Erekat said. "She reflected an understanding of the bigger picture of what is going on in the region, and the need to put this thing behind us, the Arab-Israeli conflict."
U.S. officials said Rice wanted to capitalize on momentum from a much-awaited meeting between Olmert and Abbas, which was held last month. Abbas reminded Rice that Israel has not delivered on promises from that meeting, and U.S. officials want to nudge the two leaders to keep talking.
The Bush administration has devoted more effort to resolving the conflict in Bush's second term in office, and Rice has said Bush wants to make a mark on the process before he leaves office in two years. A final settlement, with permanent borders for a functioning Palestinian state, is seen as several years off even under the best scenario.
A second Palestinian uprising, or intifada, began a few months before Bush took office in 2001, and Bush's administration was sharply critical of terror attacks against Israel but seemingly more tolerant of Israeli retaliation.
Periodic Palestinian rocket attacks and other clashes continue, as does Israel's expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the building of a high security wall through parts of the West Bank near Jerusalem.
Bush got some credit for declaring early support for an independent Palestinian state, and for calling that eventual nation Palestine.
An independent Palestinian state alongside Israel is the goal of a dormant U.S.-backed peace plan Bush unveiled in 2003. That plan is still on the table, Rice said, but the new talks essentially skip past difficult initial concessions the plan requires of both sides.
Mubarak is one of several Arab leaders who have been urging Washington to use its influence to restart peace talks. Saudi King Abdullah, with whom Rice had dinner Monday, is another. Ahead of her visit there, political cartoons in Saudi Arabia lampooned her peace efforts as inadequate or improbable. One depicted Rice laboring to pump air into a leaky tire labeled "peace process."
Rice had tried to downplay prospects for any breakthroughs on this trip, saying she was mostly hoping to listen to both sides.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Egypt is a potential host for the three-way meeting, which he suggested could ease tension and open a path to more substantive talks later.
"They have not been doing anything but fighting each other for the last six years," Gheit said.
Arab allies have been asking the Bush administration to work harder for an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement, arguing that the lingering conflict undermines efforts to make progress on other Mideast problems, including in Iraq and Iran.
In Jordan on Sunday, Abdullah told Rice that he wants Washington to apply as much diplomatic energy on the Israeli-Palestinian matter as on Iraq.
Abdullah "called on the United States to actively push for a revival of Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations that would lead to the establishment of a viable, independent Palestinian state," a Jordanian government statement said.
