Abbas pledges to reach peace by end '08

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas pledged Friday to try to reach a final status peace agreement with Israel by the end of the year - but he admitted the goal, set by US President George W. Bush, might not be achieved.

Abbas also rejected the notion that he and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert might put forth a partial document outlining the areas in which they do agree and leaving open other issues - most notably, and most explosively, the sharing of Jerusalem as a joint capital.

"It is necessary for the agreement to address all ... issues," said Abbas, speaking at the Ambrosetti Forum, an annual gathering of global political and business leaders in this Italian lakeside resort. "It is all or nothing, really."

Abbas and Olmert - and their negotiating teams - have held periodic meetings since peace talks were restarted at Annapolis, Maryland, last November.

In recent weeks, media have reported that Olmert is interested in publishing a partial document outlining the clauses agreed upon thus far.

Olmert's Kadima party is holding a leadership primary without him this month, and he has vowed to step down as soon as the new party leader can form a coalition government. The sense of urgency is compounded by polls in Israel showing the less accommodating rightist Likud opposition would likely win the election many are predicting will result from the mayhem in Kadima.

Asked about how the upcoming Kadima primary and Olmert's planned resignation would affect the peace talks, Abbas sidestepped the issue.

"We might not be able to reach a final status agreement by the end of the year," he said. "We will make all possible efforts."

Abbas said if no agreement was reached while Bush remained in office, "the new administration should not wait seven years for us to start negotiations" - an allusion to Palestinians' sense that Bush did not press Israel to negotiate for years.

"It should begin immediately as soon as a new president is in the White House."

Abbas appeared with President Shimon Peres by his side. Peres, for decades a champion of peacemaking, has used his largely ceremonial role - and his stature as an elder statesman - to push the peace efforts.

"We have to try to reach agreement," Peres said. "We have to act on the supposition that it is possible."

Abbas, whose people have sometimes fretted that prioritizing wider Mideast agreements might leave the Palestinians in the cold, said he would support Israeli progress with Syria or other Arab nations.

"Possible success for those negotiations could facilitate peace for us, too," he said. If the Arab League proposal were adopted, he said, "27 Islamic states would proceed with peace with Israel."

"Israel would be in an ocean of peace."