Tel Aviv - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he doubted that any peace agreement could be reached by the end of 2008, saying in remarks published Friday that none of the six core issues in the conflict with Israel have been resolved.

"We presented our ideas and demands regarding the six issues but have not received any answer from the Israeli side," Abbas told the Israeli Ha'aretz newspaper on the 15th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo interim peace accords by late Israeli and Palestinian leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat.

Amman- Jordan's King Abdullah II conferred on Sunday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and called for progress to be made on core issues in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

"The monarch expressed Jordan's backing to the Palestinian Authority's efforts aimed at finding just solutions to all final statues issues, particularly Jerusalem and the refugees," a royal court statement said.

Abbas told reporters after the meeting that he had briefed King Abdullah on the outcome of his latest meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Jerusalem - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met on Sunday for the second time in a month to discuss the progress of the peace negotiations.

A spokesman for Olmert said the two sides continued discussions on core issues and that there were still gaps between the parties.

"There is a need for ongoing serious efforts" to solve the "complex issues on the table," said spokesman Mark Regev.

Regev stressed that there were no attempts during the meet at Olmert's Jerusalem residence to force a joint document in the upcoming weeks and that the goal was to reach an agreement by year's end, as was stated when the Annapolis peace process was launched last autumn.

Beirut - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas arrived Thursday in Beirut for talks with Lebanese officials on issues related to the situation in the region and Palestinians living in Lebanon.

Gaza - The Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has agreed to join a national committee designated to end politically-motivated arrests among Palestinian groups, an official said Saturday.

The formation of the committee was offered last week during a meeting between leaders of the Islamist Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip and officials from leftist Palestinian factions after a surge of politically-motivated detentions conducted by Hamas in Gaza and Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank.

Tel Aviv/Bethlehem - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are to meet in Jerusalem for talks over the future of the Middle East peace process, it was reported Tuesday.

The meeting is to take place in Jerusalem on Wednesday, the Palestinian news agency Maan reported, citing Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

An Olmert spokesman was not available for a reaction.