Egypt signs on for peace conference

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice received measured support from Egypt on Tuesday for an Israeli-Palestinian peace conference despite widespread doubts in the Middle East that it will result in a lasting deal or improve security in the region.

Rice’s trip to Cairo was a diplomatic effort to persuade Arab governments to attend the Bush administration’s summit, which has not been scheduled but is expected to take place by year’s end in Annapolis, Md.

Egypt has been skeptical of the idea for weeks, but after meeting with Rice, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said at a news conference that he backed the plan.

“We are confident because she says she is determined, and the president of the United States is determined, to have a breakthrough during the remaining year of his administration,” said Aboul Gheit, who recently had suggested that the conference be postponed. “We have to believe them.”

He said Rice had “helped us to understand the American objective.”

“She shed a great deal of light on the current American efforts,” he said.

It is not known which Egyptian officials will attend the summit, and Aboul Gheit hinted that the timeline could be pushed back if negotiations did not resolve differences over the goals of the conference. But his qualified endorsement is expected to help Rice when she meets this week with King Abdullah II of Jordan. Egypt and Jordan are key U.S. allies; without their support, an Israeli-Palestinian pact would have little chance of succeeding.

Both nations are agitated over the Iraq war, the instability in Lebanon and what they have regarded as the White House’s lack of engagement on the Israeli-Palestinian question. They fear that signing on to a peace conference without a guarantee to advance Palestinian hopes for statehood would further hurt their standing in the Arab world.

The Palestinians and the Israelis have yet to agree on a joint working document for the conference. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas wants the summit to resolve statehood, Jewish settlements and other issues tied to the 1993 Oslo peace agreement. Israeli President Ehud Olmert has suggested that negotiations to reach a final agreement be less specific.

“We will continue to work and help them to create this document, and we will then be in a position, I think fairly soon, to talk about when this meeting ought to take place,” Rice said at the news conference after her talks with Aboul Gheit and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Rice met with Palestinian and Israeli officials earlier in the week and is expected to resume talks today before traveling to Jordan.

“We have a lot of work to do,” she said.

Aboul Gheit said that Egypt had promised Rice “that we would help her and we would help the parties as well in order to achieve the objective . . . that would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com