Rice prods Israelis, Palestinians to fulfil peace obligations

Rice, who headed straight to Jerusalem after landing at Tel Aviv's international airport, was due to hold talks later in the day with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

She will then return to Jerusalem overnight before holding talks with a string of Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the new chief of staff, Dan Halutz.

It is the first leg of a six-day trip that will also take her to Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia before she attends international conferences in Brussels and London.

The chief US diplomat was travelling to the region at the behest of President George W. Bush to help nail down details of Israel's plan to pull its troops and settlers from Gaza and parts of the West Bank starting in mid-August.

Rice said her main concern was coordination of what started out as a unilateral Israeli move. She said "six or seven" issues had to be made clear, including security, the handover to Palestinian institutions, distribution of assets and freedom of movement.

"There needs to be clarity between the two sides about what to expect," she told reporters aboard her plane.

"That I think will lead to less confusion in what is likely to be under the best of circumstances a pretty complicated set of days."

But the secretary also expected the parties to live up to their obligations to make the pullout a success and move on to implement an internationally drafted "roadmap" to end nearly five years of bloodshed.

She praised the Palestinians for making a start in streamlining and professionalising their security services, saying, "I think they are making progress on that."

But she added, "In terms of their ability to fight terror, what they do on a day to day basis, frankly I do think more can be done."

"I'm certainly going to talk with president (Mahmud) Abbas about the need for the Palestinians to play a critical role in providing a secure environment in which the Gaza disengagement can take place," Rice said.

"Obviously that means that the calm he has discussed with the various Palestinian factions is going to have to hold."

She also called on the Palestini-ans to end "revolving-door arrests" of militants and deal with the stockpiling of weapons by the militant group Hamas.