RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) — US Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday warned the Palestinians that attacks on Israel were killing hopes for their "long overdue" state, as the sun set on his Easter weekend peace push.
Cheney made his first trip as vice president to the West Bank for talks with moderate president Mahmud Abbas, following a string of meetings with Israeli leaders, with whom he also discussed Israel's arch foe Iran.
"A difficult but immutable truth must continue to be told: Terror and rockets do not merely kill innocent civilians, they also kill the legitimate hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian people," Cheney said.
But Cheney and his Western-backed host did not address news out of Yemen that Abbas's Fatah faction and its bitter rival, the Islamist Hamas movement, had agreed to open direct talks under Yemeni auspices.
Hamas routed pro-presidential forces in June to seize control of the Gaza Strip, from which they have fired rockets at Israel. Washington has warned that it seeks a two-state peace accord with Israel, not a three-state deal.
At a joint press conference with Cheney, Abbas offered "condemnation and rejection" of the rocket attacks but pointedly declared that peace efforts required Israel to halt military raids and expanding settlements.
"Security and peace will not be realised with the continuation of the settlement activities, the establishment of roadblocks around cities and villages, the military escalations in the Gaza Strip, and the continuing military operations in the cities and towns of the West Bank," Abbas said.
Cheney told Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert upon arrival Saturday that a peace accord "will require tremendous effort at the negotiating table, and painful concessions on both sides."
Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are one of the main snags that have hampered peace talks since they were relaunched under US stewardship at an international conference in November.
US President George W. Bush hopes for an agreement by year's end, ahead of leaving office in January 2009.
"This can be done, and if all concerned stay at the work, success will be achieved," said Cheney. "The establishment of a state of Palestine is long overdue and the Palestinian people deserve it."
Cheney -- whose trip took him to Iraq, Afghanistan, Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and a planned stop in Turkey -- also discussed Iran when he met on Sunday with Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak.
"Israel considers that (economic) sanctions are still the order of the day, but no option should be ruled out," Barak told Cheney according to a ministry statement.
"Iran's weapons programme threatens not only the stability of the region, but of the whole world," added Barak.
Israel, along with its ally the United States and other Western powers, accuses Iran of pursuing the development of a nuclear bomb under the guise of its civilian nuclear programme.
Iran and Middle East peace efforts were also on the agenda of talks between Cheney and Israeli President Shimon Peres.
"We don't have too much time. But this is the finale, maybe, of a very long chapter in the Middle East and we have to try, all of us, to make the best of it," Peres said.
He also noted fierce anti-Israel rhetoric from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, including calls for Israel to be wiped off the map. "We have to take it seriously, out of experience," Peres said.
Cheney -- who promised at the start of his visit Saturday to Israel an "unshakeable" defence of the Jewish state's safety from attack -- will meet again Monday with Olmert for breakfast talks before heading to Turkey.
The vice president's visit was part of a US diplomatic flurry before Bush returns here in May for the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish state.
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