WASHINGTON — President Bush will hold a three-way meeting in Jordan next week with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel and Mahmoud Abbas, the new Palestinian prime minister, White House officials said on Wednesday.
The announcement of the meeting in the Red Sea port city of Aqaba formalized Bush's deepening personal involvement in trying to resolve the Middle East conflict. It is part of an initiative that is full of potential chances for failure. But administration officials said they saw little choice but for Bush to lend his prestige and credibility to the effort after the Iraq war.
They also said they hoped that both the Israelis and Palestinians would take some concrete steps toward peace before the three leaders meet on Wednesday.
Bush is to go on Tuesday to the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el Sheik, where he will meet with Arab leaders, including Abbas. Sharon will not be included in that meeting, an administration official said, because Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia objected.
Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, said in a briefing to reporters on Wednesday that Sharon would not be at the meeting of Arab leaders because "the format that we decided on was one that we thought worked best, and this format will work best."
Yasser Arafat, the longtime Palestinian leader, is to be excluded from the Sharm el Sheik gathering at the insistence of White House officials, who have been trying for months to marginalize him. Nonetheless, Arab diplomats said on Wednesday that they believed that no Middle East agreement could be reached without the approval of Arafat.
White House officials said the meeting in Aqaba would take place with the caveat of "conditions permitting," apparently meaning that it could be called off if there is another round of violence or suicide bombings. But they also said that conditions now were better than they had been in many months for pushing both parties toward the idea of two nations, Israel and Palestine, side by side in the Middle East.
"The president just believes that this is a good time to sit down, face to face, eye to eye, with the leaders who have responsibility for trying to bring about that peace," Rice said.
The meeting in Aqaba became possible last weekend, when Sharon persuaded the Israeli government to endorse the U.S.-backed peace plan, known as the road map, and to officially accept a Palestinian claim to statehood. But many details remain to be worked out. White House officials made it clear that the meeting in Aqaba would be a very early first step.
"This is going to be a long process, and it is going to have ups and downs, as it has always had," Rice said.