By Wafa Amr RAMALLAH, West Bank, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are deeply divided over the content of a joint document they are drafting for next month's U.S.-sponsored statehood conference, Palestinian officials said on Sunday. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, both weakened by internal crises, have avoided formal discussion of agenda issues in a series of pre-conference summits. They appointed top aides to find common ground instead. The teams, which were introduced last week, are expected to begin negotiations on Monday but their opening positions diverge dramatically, reflecting disputes between Olmert and Abbas on how to revive moribund peace talks, Palestinian officials said. "We can say, ahead of the real discussions beginning between the negotiators, that the there is no agreement on any issue yet," chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qurie told Reuters. A senior Abbas adviser involved in the talks said that the Palestinian president and Olmert "each gave his team different instructions about what type of document to work on". An Israeli official said Olmert had "instructed the Israeli side to begin work in earnest on the joint statement, and they are doing so". The Israeli prime minister told his negotiators last week to avoid deep discussion of core issues. The Palestinians want the joint document to address future borders and the fate of millions of their refugees and of Jerusalem -- "final-status" issues that Israel has long evaded, demanding the Palestinians first provide security guarantees. ROAD MAP Olmert on Sunday invoked the "road map", a U.S.-backed peace plan from 2003 that conditioned the creation of a Palestinian state on a series of mutual confidence-building measures including a Palestinian crackdown on armed anti-Israel factions. "Anything to do with implementing a (two-state) solution is predicated on making good on the road map, not just in terms of content but also of sequence," Olmert told his cabinet. Neither side met its road map requirements, and Abbas has been weakened by Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip in June. Hamas has called on Arab countries to boycott the conference. Olmert saw his popularity sapped by last year's Lebanon war and would face opposition from rightist coalition partners to any handover of occupied West Bank land to the Palestinians. He is also embroiled in a series of corruption scandals. Israeli police plan to question him on Tuesday over one affair, the sale of a state-owned bank two years ago. Yet, in the remarks to his cabinet, Olmert described unspecified "diplomatic moves" with the Palestinians as "inevitable" and said he would work towards achieving Israeli consensus for their implementation. A Palestinian official said that the Israeli negotiating team wants the joint document to focus on the "nature" of the future Palestinian state, including that it be secular and have a stable economy, rather than on commitments required of Israel. Israel pledged last week that the negotiators would reach agreement in time for the conference, which is expected in mid-to-late November in the Washington area. U.S. President George W. Bush said on Friday that he was "very optimistic" about the conference's chances of bringing Palestinians closer to statehood. Qurie was more circumspect. "I don't care what the document is called. What's important is the content, the substance, and that it include the parameters, the basis for solving final-status issues, without ambiguity," he said.
