Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to meet US President Bush today (Monday) in the White House in Washington. US President Bush is also expected to hold a meeting with Israeli PM Olmert. Nabil Abu Rdeineh, advisor to the President, said until last night there has been no arrangement for a trilateral meeting between President Abbas, US President Bush and Israeli PM Olmert. Until midnight, before holding a meeting between Ahmad Qurei' and Israeli FM Livni in the home of US Secretary of State Rice, it was not clear if both sides can reach a joint document to be presented to the conference and the atmosphere in Washington rules out this possibility. In case a joint document is not reached, the letter of invitation from US President Bush will be enough. Abu Rdeineh said: it all depends on the results of the meeting between Qurei' and Livni; if developments occur in relation to the joint document, this will be good, if not, the invitation letter will be enough and each delegation will deliver its own speech.
President Abbas agreed with Rice in a phone call on holding a meeting between Qurei' and Livni at the home of Rice in a final attempt to reach a joint document.

Nabil Shaath, Fatah Central Committee member and member of the Palestinian delegation to Annapolis Conference, said: I don’t believe there will be a joint statement taking into consideration the fact that there is no time and the gap between both sides. We will try to achieve what we want in relation to a clear timetable and implementing the total halt of settlement activities in the Palestinian lands and implementing the Israeli withdrawal to the posts prior to September 28, 2000, and other than that, the conference is not a negotiations conference but it is to return to international efforts to give a push to the launching of the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.

The spokesperson for the US State Department said not reaching an agreement to solve the disagreements pertaining to the document was not surprising and the delegations can continue work on this on Tuesday. The conference is expected to be opened tomorrow, Tuesday, with three speeches by President Bush and President Abbas and PM Olmert. The conference will be following by another meeting between President Abbas and President Bush on Wednesday.

The Arab Foreign Ministers are also expected to hold a meeting today in Washington to assess the situation once again in light of the new Palestinian-Israeli negotiations session and the decision of Syria to participate.

According to the Palestinian sources, the conference is expected to end with an official declaration to launch the final status negotiations and to form six Palestinian-Israeli teams to discuss the six final status issues along with setting up a follow up mechanism through holding meetings once every several months to see what has been achieved and what is needed to push the negotiations forwards and keep the momentum of Annapolis.

In the meantime, US President National Security Advisor Steven Hadley gave some clarifications on the American strategy yesterday evening. He said: what we will do deal with launching three phases in parallel lines. The first phase is to see the parties start negotiations that are supposed to lead to a Palestinian state and a broader peace. At the same time, the Israelis and Palestinians shall start to abide by their commitments in the context of the roadmap. Hadley explained that this means that the Israelis will open room to enable the Palestinians to secure a better life and this also means in the eyes of the Palestinians to build their institutions to govern the West Bank and provide security to the Palestinians and to improve the security for Israel and for the entire region. The third phase stipulates reinforcing international support to the Palestinian institutions so that the Palestinians can be able to abide by the commitments they made.

In the meantime, Head of Israeli Meretz Party Yosi Beilin quoted Chief of the Egyptian Intelligence Apparatus Omar Suleiman whom he met in Cairo that Egypt desires to host the final talks between the Palestinians and Israelis in Egyptian Taba which hosted former talks between both sides.

Published at Al Ayyam NewsPaper on November 26, 2007