Rice: Mideast peace conference must be substantive

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today said an upcoming US-sponsored Mideast conference must be “substantive,” and that the two sides must draft a document before the meeting that lays “foundations for serious negotiations.”

The conference “has to be substantive and advance the cause of a Palestinian state,” Rice told a joint news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Participants must not “simply meet for the sake of meeting,” she said.

Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are working to put together a document before the conference that lays out objectives for further talks.

The Palestinians want a specific framework for a peace deal, complete with a timetable, while Israel says it wants a vaguer declaration of intentions.

Rice told reporters that the document must “lay foundations for serious negotiations.”

The meeting is expected to take place in November in Washington.