U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday reiterated that she prefers to see negotiations aimed at achieving a permanent, rather than provisional, Palestinian state.

"My own view, and I frankly have been telling people this, [is] that if we get to that point, it seems to me that it may be more difficult to negotiate a provisional state than just to go to the end game" of final borders, Rice said. "We're not there yet, and we'll see."

But Rice did not rule out the idea, which Israelis have floated as a way of energizing the stalled peace process, when she spoke to reporters Tuesday.

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Palestinians reject the proposal as a nonstarter, arguing that temporary borders would be too hard to redraw and Israel might end up with large swaths of the West Bank.

The option of granting recognition to a Palestinian state within provisional borders appears in the second phase of the road map peace plan, endorsed by the United States, European Union, Russia and the United Nations. Under the proposal, the definition of the state's final borders would be left to negotiations over the hardest issues dividing Israelis and Palestinians, which include the status of Jerusalem and the return of Palestinian refugees.
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Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni recently proposed establishing a Palestinian state with provisional borders based on the West Bank separation barrier. But the Palestinians are flatly opposed to this, fearing that the contested barrier will become the ultimate border.

Rice planned to brief German and British leaders this week about the possible next steps toward peace. She was dining with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin on Wednesday and with British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett in London on Thursday.

U.S. President George W. Bush supports an eventual independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. That is the goal of a 2003 U.S.-backed international peace plan that has gotten little traction.

Rice spent a long weekend in Israel and the West Bank assessing the possible next steps toward peace, and on Monday said she would convene a three-way confidence-building session with
Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas prefer an informal session to a larger regional or international peace conference, Rice said, referring to an idea advanced in Europe and some Arab capitals.

"That really raises expectations that something is imminent," Rice said.

In remarks to reporters traveling with her Tuesday, Rice channeled her background as a college professor for what sounded like her answer to criticism that the Bush administration won't talk to its adversaries.

The authors of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan U.S. panel that reported to The White House last year, and U.S. senators have accused the Bush administration of being shortsighted in rejecting talks with Iran and Syria that might help reduce the sectarian violence in Iraq.

"There's a tendency to think about diplomacy as something that is done untethered to the conditions underlying it or the balance underlying it," Rice said.

"That's not the way that it works," Rice said. "You aren't going to be successful as a diplomat if you don't understand the strategic context in which you are actually negotiating. It is not dealmaking."

Bush's plan, announced last week, rejects the idea of outreach to Iran and Syria and would add U.S. forces in Iraq.