ANNAPOLIS, Maryland - President George W. Bush opens a high-stakes Israeli-Palestinian peace conference on Tuesday, trying to achieve in his final 14 months in office a goal that has eluded U.S. leaders for decades.
Finally embracing a hands-on approach he disdained after his predecessor Bill Clinton failed to broker a deal in the twilight of his presidency, Bush is hosting the most ambitious round of international Middle East diplomacy in seven years.
The talks are aimed at jump-starting a long-dormant peace process and negotiations for creating a Palestinian state. But with lingering mistrust and daily violence between the two sides, no one expects a swift breakthrough.
Hoping to salvage a foreign policy legacy likely to be dominated by the unpopular Iraq war, Bush will address the one-day conference in Annapolis, Maryland, attended by more than 40 states, including Saudi Arabia, Syria and other Arab powers.
Like the United States, many participants are driven by the desire to offset the growing influence of non-Arab Iran -- an opponent of peace with the Jewish state. Tehran said on Tuesday it had built a new long-range missile. The weapon matches the range of another Iranian missile that can hit Israel.
Bush's speech at the U.S. Naval Academy, sandwiched between his talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, will be the centrepiece of his most direct role in Middle East peacemaking, something he had mostly shunned since taking office in 2001.
"We've come together this week because we share a common goal -- two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security," Bush said at a dinner for participants on the eve of the conference near Washington.
"Achieving this goal requires difficult compromises."
A senior Palestinian official said Abbas was expected to stress that the international conference represented a unique opportunity for a comprehensive peace, which he hoped could be achieved before Bush leaves office.
Joining the talks are Syria, a front-line state formally at war with Israel, and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal. Their presence is considered a diplomatic coup for the Bush administration. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will shepherd the conference.
The meeting includes a session on the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967 and which Damascus hopes to regain. "We participate with the understanding that the Golan will be discussed," Syrian diplomat Ahmad Salkini told Reuters.
EXPECTATIONS LOW
