Kerry promised any agreed plan would be "fair and balanced" and likened his efforts to broker a compromise between the conflicting demands of the two sides to a puzzle.
"In the end all of these core issues fit together like a mosaic, like a puzzle and you can't separate out one piece or another," Kerry said in Jerusalem before flying to Amman, and later Saudi Arabia.
Each piece was interlinked, he stressed, and depended on the compromises the other side might be prepared to make.
But he warned his efforts could ultimately fail, saying he could not tell when "the last pieces may decide to fall into place, or may fall on the floor, and leave the puzzle unfinished.
"That's exactly what makes this such a challenge."
On the fourth day of his trip to the region, Kerry briefed the key Jordanian and Saudi stakeholders about his intense shuttling between Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
In Amman he spent more than an hour of talks with King Abdullah and Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh. Contd....
A senior State Department official said Kerry had wanted to "seek their counsel on the discussion with the Israelis and Palestinians about a framework for final status negotiations".
He then travelled to Saudi Arabia for almost three hours of talks with King Abdullah.
At Riyadh airport before leaving, Kerry said the monarch had backed his framework.
"I am grateful that the Arab League as a whole and Saudi Arabia individually will be significantly involved in helping build support for this effort," he said.
Jordan borders the occupied West Bank, and under its 1994 peace treaty with Israel is recognised as playing a historic role in the guardianship of Muslim sites in east Jerusalem.
The Saudi Arabian monarch was the author of a 2002 Arab League peace initiative, which Kerry praised again yesterday as holding out the prospect for "instantaneously" reaching peace between Israel and "22 Arab nations and 35 Muslim nations, all of whom have said they will recognise Israel if peace is achieved".
Saudi Arabia has, however, been notably frustrated by US's perceived lack of action to halt the war in Syria, and the conflict was also likely to have been addressed in yesterday's talks.
Earlier, the US appeared for the first time to hold out the possibility that Iran might play a role on the sidelines of a Syria peace conference even if Tehran is not formally invited.
Washington, and Syrian opposition groups, have long had reservations about the participation of Iran, which they accuse of supporting Syrian President Bashar Al Assad with manpower and arms during the near three-year uprising against his rule.
Despite the improvement in US-Iranian relations, with a landmark nuclear deal struck in November, ties are strained by many issues, including the Syrian civil war.
At a news conference in Jerusalem, Kerry reiterated US opposition to Iran being a formal member of the so-called "Geneva 2" talks scheduled for January 22 in Switzerland because it does not support a 2012 international agreement on Syria.
"Now, could they contribute from the sidelines? Are there ways for them, conceivably, to weigh in? Can their mission that is already in Geneva ... be there in order to help the process? It may be that there are ways that could happen," he said.
Source:
Dailymail
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