President George W. Bush hosts Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House on Thursday to try to bolster him and shore up a fragile U.S.-backed peace effort with Israel.
With 10 months left in office, Bush will hold talks with Abbas in the face of deep scepticism over the chances for securing a Middle East peace deal before the U.S. president finishes his term early next year.
Abbas, weakened by Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip in June, was expected to seek stepped-up U.S. pressure on Israel. Bush will visit the Jewish state in mid-May to join in celebrations of its 60th anniversary.
Negotiations between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have yielded little progress since a U.S.-sponsored conference in Annapolis, Maryland, in November, where they pledged to try to reach a peace agreement by the end of 2008.
The administration now appears to be picking up the pace of Middle East diplomacy again after Bush failed to achieve a breakthrough on his visit to the region in January.
In White House talks on Wednesday, aides to Jordan's King Abdullah said the monarch pressed for a timetable for negotiations on Palestinian statehood, something Bush has been reluctant to impose.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is going to the region ahead of Bush, who is looking to shape a foreign policy legacy that encompasses more than the unpopular war in Iraq.
But Bush will likely have a hard time squeezing serious concessions from either side as world leaders look increasingly to whomever will succeed him January 2009.
Abbas, speaking late on Wednesday to the Arab community in Washington, said "We are holding serious negotiations aimed at reaching an agreement by the end of this year. But I have to say that there are wide gaps between us and the Israelis on the issues under discussion.
"I would like to reiterate, despite those gaps my commitment to achieving a peace agreement."
SETTLEMENTS A MAJOR IMPEDIMENT
