U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that it was important for Israel and the Palestinians to establish a common agenda in order to move forward on forming a Palestinian state.

After meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday, Rice was traveling to Jordan early Monday, returning to Jerusalem later in the day for a second round of meetings with Abbas and Olmert.

Rice also said all the parties need to have a destination in mind to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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The U.S. secretary of state spoke at a news conference with Abbas, at their first meeting since the Islamic militant Hamas and Abbas' more moderate Fatah Party formed a new coalition government last week.

In speaking of finding a resolution to the decades-old conflict, Rice seems to have broken with Israel, which has said it would not conduct peace talks with Abbas now that he has joined forces with Hamas.

"It's extremely important to establish a common agenda to move forward toward the establishment of a Palestinian state," she said.

"It would help all of us to have a destination in mind where we are going," Rice added.

Rice visited the West Bank city of Ramallah to talk to Abbas before heading to dinner with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the first of what may be a series of back-and-forth talks with the two.

Rice said she would meet twice with both Abbas and Olmert during her fourth trip to the region in as many months. Rice is talking to them separately because Olmert has ruled out engaging Abbas on peace since the Fatah member formed a Palestinian unity government with the Islamist Hamas faction.

Her best hope for the trip is that the two sides will agree to separate but "parallel" discussions on a common set of issues that could eventually lead to direct negotiations.

"You need to prepare the ground well, you need to spend time with the parties. You need to understand what is tolerable [for] each side," Rice said at a news conference with Abbas.

Speaking to American reporters before dining with Olmert, Rice acknowledged her approach was cautious and said the chances for quick, dramatic progress were low.

"My approach has been, I admit, careful. It's been step by step. I have not been willing to try for the big bang. I don't think that that's where we are," she said.

"The question here isn't speed. The question is trying to really move forward toward the establishment of a Palestinian state."

Also Sunday, Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa urged Israel on Sunday to accept a 2002 Arab peace initiative as a basis for peace negotiations, and insisted that Arab leaders meeting in Saudi Arabia later this week will not alter the proposal's land-for-peace offer.

Speaking to reporters, Moussa rejected what some Arab leaders have seen as a hint from U.S. officials, including Rice, that Arab countries should normalize relations with Israel as a start for the resumption of peace talks.

"We see nothing but (calls for) normalization... It cannot materialize unless there are reciprocal moves," Moussa said.

Moussa's comments made clear he agreed, but also hinted that Arab leaders would be willing to negotiate on some points if Israel showed interest in the plan.

"If Israel accepts the basis of the initiative, there will be negotiations and a peace process," Moussa said. "Otherwise, the initiative will not be amended."

Meanwhile, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said on Sunday that Arab states would not amend their 2002 offer to Israel of normal ties in return for Israel withdrawing from the captured land.

Israel has repeatedly rejected the plan and is concerned the Arabs may use it to impose a settlement on refugees and borders.

"There will be no amendment to the Arab peace initiative. We have said this 20 times before in the past and this is the last time I will say this," Prince Saud told reporters.

PA to Washington: We want to discuss final status issues
A senior aide to Abbas has said that the Palestinians have informed Washington that they want to discuss final status issues in the context of a future peace accord.

Abbas aide Yasser Abed Rabbo also stressed that the PA wants to see Arab leaders keep their peace plan free from amendments before they relaunch it at a summit in Saudi Arabia next week, analysts and Palestinian officials said.

Arab diplomats said the March 28-29 summit would send Israel and the United States a message that the Arab world is ready to make peace with Israel meets its demands.

"We are against amending the Arab peace initiative," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, senior aide to Abbas. "The Americans are exploring ways to revive the peace process. We told them we want to discuss final-status issues." Israel and the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement both rejected the Saudi-drafted plan when it was adopted unanimously at an Arab summit in 2002.

However, Olmert has recently said the initiative contains "positive elements." It offers full peace with Israel if it withdraws from all Arab land occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War, accepts a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, and reaches an "agreed, just solution" for refugees.

Hamas, by contrast, has vowed never to recognize Israel, abandon right of return for refugees or accept more than a long-term truce with Israel within its 1967 borders.

Olmert, Israeli analysts say, wants Arab states to sit down with Israel before the conflict with the Palestinians is resolved and to soften their conditions for peace in advance.

Lame Ducks?
Israel sees little realistic prospect of negotiating peace with Abbas, whose authority is limited by Hamas' power over a coalition government it formed with the Fatah faction last week.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the Arab League and moderate Arab states could play an important role in encouraging the Palestinians to move towards peace "because of the dysfunctional nature of Palestinian politics today."

Olmert's own authority is in question, raising questions about whether he could rally skeptical Israelis behind any long-term peace deal. The Israeli leader recently acknowledged openly his unpopularity with a public angered by the conduct of last year's war with Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.

Washington's renewed interest in reviving Arab-Israeli peace talks coincides with its efforts to enlist Arab allies in its campaign to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions - a quest hampered by deep Arab hostility to the Iraq war and U.S. support for Israel.

Palestinian officials and Arab diplomats said U.S. diplomacy had so far focused on pressing allies such as Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to modify the Arab peace offer at the summit in Riyadh to make it more palatable to Israel.

Arab leaders will not do this, Palestinian analyst Bassem Izbedi predicted. Instead, they might placate the United States by reaffirming their commitment to fighting terrorism and by urging Hamas to accept international requirements for peace, he said.

"The Arabs are in a difficult position," Izbedi added.

Ahead of the summit, Rice arrived in the region on Saturday and met in Aswan, Egypt with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

She was due to hold talks with Abbas and Olmert during her trip.

Sensitive issues
A senior Palestinian official said Washington had asked the Palestinians, through an Arab leader, to draft ideas before the summit on how key issues such as refugees could be resolved.

Israel rules out any mass return of the descendants of refugees dislodged in 1948 from their homes in what became Israel, saying this would destroy its Jewish character.

Olmert raised the issue in a meeting with Abbas earlier this month, an Abbas aide said. Abbas told him the Palestinians wanted to negotiate "a just solution to the refugee problem", not to impose one, the aide said.

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