The United States today invited Israel and the Palestinians to attend a meeting in Maryland next week that it hopes will launch formal peace talks.
Many states will be asked to attend the November 27th talks, including Syria and Saudi Arabia which do not have diplomatic relations with Israel and whose presence might give Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas political cover to make compromises.
The meeting is President George W Bush's most serious effort to resolve the six-decade conflict but it faces big obstacles, including divisions among the Palestinians and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's political weakness.
While US officials hope the talks will eventually lead to a deal on a Palestinian state, officials from the two sides and US diplomats working have yet to produce even an agreement on how such negotiations would proceed.
Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdainah pre-empted an expected formal announcement from Washington by saying that the Palestinian leader had received his invitation.
Mr Olmert's spokeswoman also said an invitation was received. In addition to the one-day meeting at the waterfront US Naval Academy in Annapolis, there are expected to be talks in Washington the day before and the day after, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
He also said the Israelis and Palestinians were making progress on a joint document they hope to present at Annapolis but it was unclear whether this would provide details on core issues of borders, the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has staked her reputation on reviving Israel-Palestinian peacemaking, spoke by telephone with Mr Abbas, Mr Olmert and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni today.
More than 100 officials are expected to attend the meeting, including representatives from the Group of Eight industrial countries, the United Nations, the European Union as well as smaller players such as Norway, Turkey and Senegal.
The United States has said it will invite all the members of an Arab League committee that includes Syria and Saudi Arabia but no decision on whether they will attend is expected before Arab foreign ministers begin meeting in Cairo on Thursday.
Syria has said it will not come unless there is discussion of the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from it in the 1967 Middle East war, while Saudi Arabia has been cagey about whether it will participate.