Bush Meets Sharon, Abbas

Separate statements were to be issued afterwards after the Israelis and Palestinians failed to agree on a joint communiqué.

Ceasefire "important"
A ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians would be an "important" and "helpful" step towards peace, the United States said ahead of the landmark summit.

Israel has warned that a ceasefire at the stage in the 32-month old Palestinian Intifada against the occupation would be dangerous, and permit Palestinian resistance factions to regroup.

But White House spokesman Ari Fleischer backed the idea.

"Clearly a ceasefire is helpful and important. It also must be part of a crackdown and a dismantling," he told reporters on Air Force One as Bush traveled from Egypt to Jordan.

Fleischer did not mention any timeframe under which the United States would like to see a ceasefire introduced or say whether Washington had pushed for one to be agreed at Wednesday’s summit.

He poured praise on Abbas, with whom Bush has decided to deal in preference to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

"The big change in the last year is that the Palestinian people are now led by a man who is interested in achieving peace, genuine, real, peace, and cracking down on terror," Fleischer said.

"The Palestinian leader knows he has the backing of his powerful Arab neighbors to help achieve peace and crackdown on terror," he noted.

The U.S.-Arab summit hosted by Egypt Tuesday, June 3, with the aim of re-launching the Middle East peace process closed its formal session with differences emerging to the fore.

The two sides locked horn over Arabs’ normalization of ties with the Jewish state which delayed the official opening of the summit.

However, the summit ended with a joint agreement on the establishment of a Palestinian state and combating "terrorism" in the region.