Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams have begun meeting to hammer out a joint document addressing "core issues" for the U.S.-sponsored international meeting expected to be held late next month in Annapolis, Maryland.

"I don't expect ... that there will be any particular outcome in the sense of breakthroughs on the document," Rice told reporters as she flew to Tel Aviv from Moscow.

"I would just warn in advance not to expect that, because this is really a work in progress," Rice said, holding out the possibility she would return to the region in a few weeks' time.

Israel has sought to address in general terms the most divisive aspects of the Middle East conflict -- borders, the future of the holy city of Jerusalem, and the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who lost control of the Gaza Strip to Hamas Islamists in June, has been pressing for a document with a timetable for dealing with those issues and moving Palestinians closer to statehood.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his cabinet, where he faces right-wing opposition to his peace moves, that he expected the conference to be followed by "discussions on the possibility of founding a Palestinian state."

But he said in opening remarks at the session on Sunday that "setting a timetable for this process in advance would create more problems than it would solve."

On the flight to Israel, Rice said she was "rather suspicious of timetables." She said, however, "everyone will want to have a sense that once the process of negotiations begins that it's going to continue to have a sort of forward momentum."

Rice is to meet Olmert in Jerusalem and travel to the West Bank to see Abbas during her visit, which will include a side trip to Egypt and talks in London with Jordan's King Abdullah.

COALITION PARTNER

She also planned to meet with the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, a key partner in Olmert's coalition. A Shas leader has called on Olmert to discuss only economic matters at the conference.

During her previous visit last month, Rice urged Israelis and Palestinians to draft a document laying the basis for serious negotiations at the gathering, which Washington hopes will attract wide Arab participation.

"Obviously, as one might expect at this point in time, there are still issues and differences to bridge in the nature of the document ... but my impression is that they are getting along quite well," Rice said at the start of her latest trip.

Ahmed Qurie, the Palestinian chief negotiator, told reporters on Saturday the joint paper should "include the principles of a settlement in a clear manner."

Israeli, Palestinian and Western officials said last week real progress would depend on narrowing differences over the fate of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees, displaced when Israel was founded in 1948.

Palestinians want Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem as the capital of the state they hope to create in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its capital, a claim not recognized internationally.

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