JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel said on Monday it wants to emerge from a US-sponsored peace conference later this year with a joint statement that touches on the most intractable issues of the Middle East conflict.
"It would be preferable that at the end of that meeting, there is a joint statement referring to the core questions," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told parliament's powerful foreign affairs and defence committee.
That statement "will form the basis on forming the future Palestinian state," a senior government official quoted him as saying.
The premier sought to once again play down expectations ahead of the meeting, saying it was "not a peace conference, but rather an international meeting aimed at offering international support to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process."
The Israeli premier has been holding regular talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in recent weeks to try to come up with some kind of agreement before the conference, expected in November.
While the Palestinians have insisted on a detailed agreement of principles on the core issues of the decades-long conflict -- including refugees, borders and Jerusalem --, Israel has instead favoured a more vague joint declaration.
Abbas and Olmert are due to hold their next round of talks early next week, after which their negotiating teams "will start their joint work," the Israeli premier said.
He also underlined that any agreement would have to follow the international Quartet's roadmap to Middle East peace, which stipulates a cessation of Palestinian attacks and a freeze on Israeli settlements.
"There won't be any shift from the roadmap and the sequence of steps that it lays out," he said, referring to the blueprint that has languished since its launch in 2003.
"It is important to check to what point the Palestinians can carry out their commitments and this will be put to the test before we have to take any steps," he said.
He also dismissed critics who say that Abbas, whose authority has been effectively limited to the occupied West Bank since Hamas seized Gaza in mid-June, was too weak to implement any agreement.
"Those who say that we should not talk with them are leading us to a future that means war, bloodshed and endless conflict."
Olmert also defended Israel's controversial decision last week to declare the Gaza Strip a "hostile entity" and threaten to cut supplies of electricity and fuel to the Hamas-run territory in response to continuing rocket fire.
"We are considering steps against the Hamas regime in order to influence the readiness of the different parties to stop the continuing rocket fire," he said.
But he said Israel did not aim to worsen the humanitarian situation in the impoverished territory that, with 1.5 million residents, is one of the world's most densely-populated places.
"We have no intention to cause any humanitarian damage to Gaza residents and we are distinguishing between the big majority of the public that is not involved in terror and the initiators of terror, who are trying to drag the entire Gaza Strip down," he said.
Israel has been roundly criticised for its move, which rights groups say amounts to illegal collective punishment.
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