Jordan's King Abdullah pressed the United States on Tuesday to step up its mediation role to broker a Palestinian-Israeli peace accord, complicated by a power-sharing pact including the Islamist Hamas movement.

The monarch, who made his statement after separate meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas, said Washington's role was crucial to jump-start negotiations and overcome obstacles towards a settlement based on a two-state solution.

"The people of the region are looking towards Washington continuing to play a major role in the peace process by creating the necessary environment for a resumption of negotiations on the basis of the two-state solution outlined in the Arab peace initiative and the Middle East roadmap," the statement said.

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The Arab initiative, launched in 2002, suggest trading diplomatic recognition for Israel's withdrawal from land it conquered in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Meanwhile, Abbas said Monday that his talks with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were tense and difficult, but not a failure.

Speaking in Jordan on Tuesday after talks with King Abdullah II, the Palestinian leader said Israel may have misunderstood the agreement reached in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, between his moderate Fatah faction and the militant Hamas group on February 8.

"We told Israel that this agreement was made to protect the unity of the Palestinian people and its national interests," he told Jordan's official Petra news agency.

"The agreement is an expression of support for Palestinian interests, but
Israel may have misunderstood it," he added.

He said he expected to meet Olmert in the future, but he stressed that no date had been fixed.

Abbas was on his way Tuesday to Germany, Britain and France where he is
expected to seek European support for the plan to form a new Palestinian
government. Abbas believes the new cabinet will take a moderate position and should ultimately lead to the lifting of the West's financial embargo on the Palestinian Authority, which was imposed after Hamas took power last. The sanctions have blocked the transfer of $1 billion in aid.

After Abbas talks with the king, the Jordanian palace issued a statement saying that Abdullah had pledged to intensify Jordan's diplomatic efforts in the coming period to win international backing for ending the [economic] siege and to strengthen the position of the Palestinian negotiator in the peace process - a reference to Abbas.

Abdullah said peace must be based on the road map plan, which envisions the creation of a Palestinian state, and the Arab peace initiative of 2002 Arab, which offers full recognition of Israel in return for its full withdrawal from Arab territory.

The palace said that the king phoned Olmert on Tuesday and urged him to
reactivate the peace process with the Palestinians and overcome all obstacles that hinder the resumption of negotiations

In Gaza, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's office said Abbas had telephoned him late on Monday to brief him on the trilateral meeting.

"The two sides have agreed to move forward in the implementation of the Mecca agreement and to protect the joint Palestinian interest," Haniyeh's office said in a statement.

Rice seeks 'Arab Quartet' backing for peace moves
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought on Tuesday to get Arab support for U.S. efforts to revive a peace process complicated by a Palestinian unity government deal with Hamas.

With only modest success from an Israeli-Palestinian summit, Rice met Jordan's King Abdullah during her short visit where officials said she briefed him on her meeting in Jerusalem on Monday with Olmert and Abbas.

She was also set to meet security and intelligence chiefs from the so-called Arab Quartet - Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan - to discuss Israeli-Palestinian issues, said a senior State Department official.

"We will be discussing the national unity government, what that means, particularly as that was brought in under Saudi sponsorship, and what we are trying to do with the trilateral," said the official traveling with Rice.

Saudi involvement in bringing together the Palestinian coalition has caused some tensions in the close relationship between Washington and Riyadh and Rice was expected to ask Saudi national security advisor Prince Bandar bin Sultan about his view of the deal during their meeting with other Arab officials in Jordan.

Before going to Amman, Rice urged Arab countries to do their share in trying to break the deadlock in Israeli-Palestinian peace moves.

"I hope that the Arab states also understand that they have a role to play in this. You know, this isn't just what the United States can talk about with the Israelis and the Palestinians," Rice told reporters traveling with her.

"How about some of the ideas that were there in the Arab initiative? Why can't we get some of that going, too?," she said late on Monday.

The Arab initiative was launched in 2002 which would have traded diplomatic recognition for Israel's withdrawal from land it occupied before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

"I don't want others to stand on the sideline and say, you know, the United States needs to deliver the completion of the roadmap. Everybody's got obligations. And one thing that I'll be talking to the Arabs about is what can you to do make this happen," she said.

Arab nations, for their part, argue that the United States, bogged down in Iraq, has not done enough to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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