The US Secretary of State Ms Madeleine Albright apparently failed yesterday to push the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, to move quickly on a promised troop pullback in the West Bank.
Mr Netanyahu said before meeting Ms Albright that his government would need several more weeks to work out the plan and even then it would require months of security co-operation from the Palestinians to put it in place.
Ms Albright, who wants concrete progress in the stalled Middle East talks before the end of the year, told a news conference later that time was pressing for both Israelis and Palestinians to make "bold decisions" for peace.
Both she and Mr Netanyahu said their three hours of talks were substantive and useful but they announced no breakthrough in the negotiations and gave no details about Israel's pullback plan, agreed in principle by the Israeli cabinet last Sunday.
"Did this meeting help clear the air? The answer is yes. Did we discuss percentages and did I pull out my secret maps? The answer is no," Mr Netanyahu said.
The talks with Mr Netanyahu and a meeting Ms Albright will hold with the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, in Geneva on Saturday were arranged at the last moment ahead of an African tour Ms Albright will make next week.
It will be her second round of meetings in Europe with the two leaders in three weeks.
In Washington, President Clinton said concrete progress was needed in peace efforts and Ms Albright would present "some new ideas" to the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
Earlier, Mr Netanyahu appeared to extend still further the time-frame for the troop withdrawal, seen by Washington as a key condition for resuming fullscale Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Ms Albright made clear she was in no mood to wait indefinitely. "Both sides have to put their shoulder to the wheel," she said.
She said she would tell Mr Arafat he should not dismiss the redeployment offer out of hand. "We take it seriously and he should take it seriously and it's time to start swimming," she said.
Israeli media reports say Mr Netanyahu may offer the Palestinians a further 6 to 8 per cent of the West Bank. Palestinians have demanded up to 30 per cent. US officials have suggested they hope to split the difference.
Three civilians were killed and one was wounded by a series of explosions in south Lebanon yesterday, a security source said. The pro-Iranian Hizbullah group, whose guerrillas are fighting to drive Israeli forces from their south Lebanon occupation zone, blamed Israel for the blasts.