U.S. will push deal for peace in Mideast

WASHINGTON — The United States will try to close an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal before President Bush’s term expires, giving the administration a little over a year to help the two sides craft a resolution to one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.

But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Wednesday that the task will be difficult and fraught with entrenched positions on both sides that have led to the failure of all previous attempts.

“The parties have said they are going to make efforts to conclude it in this president’s term, and it’s no secret that means about a year,” Rice said. “That’s what we’ll try and do.”

Speaking a day after the administration issued invitations for next week’s Mideast peace conference in Annapolis, Md., Rice said the meeting could already be considered a success because Israeli and Palestinian leaders will agree to launch peace talks with an eye toward completing them and creating a Palestinian state by January 2009.

“The success of this meeting is really in the launch of negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians for the establishment of a Palestinian state,” she said.

The United States is hosting Israeli and Palestinian leaders Nov. 26-28 for talks in Washington and Annapolis at which senior officials from 46 other nations and groups are expected to attend and endorse the resumption of direct negotiations.

“Now, it’s going to be a complex agreement, there are a lot of issues that need to be resolved,” Rice said. “But I am prepared, the president’s prepared and I know members of the international community … are prepared to help them along that path.”

The Bush administration believes the Annapolis session will be an important launchpad for talks to settle the conflict over land, nationhood and rights that underlies Israel’s other problems with Arab neighbors.