(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-11-25 22:02

JERUSALEM - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday headed to the upcoming US-hosted Mideast peace conference promising to "exert all efforts" to reach a deal with Israel, but acknowledged that negotiations on a joint statement ahead of the summit are in trouble.

Israel and the Palestinians have been trying for months to hammer out a joint blueprint for peace to present to the conference, taking place this week in Washington and Annapolis, Maryland. But Abbas said that significant differences remain.

"The positions with the Israelis before Annapolis are still far apart, and the negotiations are still ongoing," Abbas said on the plane heading to the US. His quotes appeared Sunday in the Palestinian newspaper al-Ayyam.

Despite the differences, Abbas said he was committed to doing everything possible to hammer out a peace agreement in the coming year. Both Israel and the US have said they hope to reach a deal before President George W. Bush leaves office in January 2009.

"We will exert all efforts to achieve peace within this period," Abbas said.

Negotiations on the pre-summit declaration have deadlocked over whether the document should address the core issues of an agreement: final borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state, a resolution to disputed claims to Jerusalem; and the fate of Palestinians who became refugees following Israel's establishment in 1948.

The Palestinians want the document to address these core issues in general terms. Israel wants much vaguer language, though Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has promised to open negotiations on all areas of dispute after the Annapolis summit. It remained unclear whether the sides would bridge their differences before the conference, which is scheduled to begin Monday in Washington.

In the interview, Abbas urged a skeptical Palestinian public to give the conference a chance. "We have to start and to look at the glass as half full, not halt empty," he said. "We have to wait and see the results of Annapolis. We must not judge the conference before it starts."

   1 2   

   1 2