US Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday wrapped up a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories aimed at energising the faltering Middle East peace talks.
Cheney had breakfast with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and was later to fly out to Turkey for the last leg of a regional tour that has also taken him to Iraq, Afghanistan, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
Arriving in Israel during the Easter weekend, Cheney vowed Washington's "unshakeable" defence of Israel's security, assured the Palestinians of US "goodwill", and said both sides would have to make "painful concessions" if they were to strike a deal to end their decades-old conflict.
The vice president also discussed what he called "darkening shadows" in Israel's arch-foe Iran, Syria and the Palestinian Gaza Strip, controlled by the Islamist Hamas movement.
In his first trip to the occupied West Bank as vice president, Cheney warned the Palestinians on Sunday that continuing attacks on Israel were killing hopes for their "long overdue" state.
"A difficult but immutable truth must continue to be told: Terror and rockets do not merely kill innocent civilians, they also kill the legitimate hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian people," Cheney said after talks with moderate president Mahmud Abbas.
But Cheney and his Western-backed host did not address news out of Yemen that Abbas's Fatah faction and its bitter rival, the Islamist Hamas movement, had agreed to open direct talks under Yemeni auspices.
Hamas, a group pledged to Israel's destruction and considered a terror outfit by the US and the Jewish state, routed pro-Abbas force in June in Gaza, splitting the Palestinians into two separate entities.
At a joint press conference with Cheney, Abbas once again condemned the rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza, but said Israel would have to halt military raids and expanding settlements to strike a peace deal.
"Security and peace will not be realised with the continuation of the settlement activities, the establishment of roadblocks around cities and villages, the military escalations in the Gaza Strip, and the continuing military operations in the cities and towns of the West Bank," Abbas said.
Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are one of the main snags that have hampered peace talks since they were relaunched under US stewardship at an international conference in November.
US President George W. Bush hopes for an agreement by year's end, ahead of leaving office in January 2009.
On the Iran issue, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak told Cheney late Monday that while economic sanctions were for the moment the best way to deal with Tehran, "no option should be ruled out".
"Iran's weapons programme threatens not only the stability of the region, but of the whole world," Barak said.
Washington and Israel, widely considered the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power, accuse Iran of pursuing the development of a nuclear bomb under the guise of its civilian nuclear programme, a charge Tehran denies.
In Turkey, Cheney was to meet with President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other senior officials.
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