Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has warned of an extremely difficult impasse if a peace deal is not reached with Israel before US President George W Bush leaves office in January.
President Abbas was in the White House on Thursday to meet President Bush who is pushing for a peace deal to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before the end of his term early next year.
The Palestinian leader said that President Bush clearly realises that time is short, but he remains hopeful of being able to achieve something.
Afterwards Mr Bush said that a Palestinian state was a high priority, for him and his administration.
Mr Abbas has called on the US to use its influence to implement the so-called roadmap for Middle East peace and achieve President Bush's vision of two states, an independent Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel.
In their talks, President Abbas said he and the US president clearly stated their positions, and he applauded the Bush administration's active diplomacy to reach an accord by the start of next year.
At the same time, Mr Abbas admitted there was still a wide gap between the Palestinian and Israeli positions on key issues.
He told President Bush that there are three main obstacles; continuing to expand Jewish settlements and maintain roadblocks in the occupied West Bank, and the question of borders which the Palestinians insist must be based on the 1967 borders.
Mr Abbas added, however, that he did not rule out slight modifications to the borders in order to reach a peace agreement with the Jewish state.
