Israeli and Palestinian leaders have agreed to begin formal negotiations on Palestinian statehood after a US-sponsored conference expected next month.
The two sides took what is hoped is the first small step on Wednesday toward a peace deal, instructing their aides to lay out the principles that will guide future negotiations.
"After the November conference, they will start to negotiate a final agreement but with no timetable," a senior Israeli official said.
Israel has previously stopped short of saying the conference would restart final-status talks that collapsed in early 2001.
But Walid Batrawi, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Ramallah, said the meeting has raised few expectations.
"For many Palestinians, talks are not enough - they need deeds and not words," he said.
'No trust'
Analyst George Giacaman said: "There is considerable scepticism on part of the Palestinians after the failure of past meetings.
"Also the continued Israeli incursions, assassinations and confiscation of land.
"There is no basic trust in the Israelis' intentions given that also Israel is the one of the few states that its borders have not yet been defined and the Zionist programme in Palestine has not yet finished."
The two leaders were originally scheduled to meet on Tuesday, but the talks were postponed due to technical reasons.
Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian negotiator, said the conference "will launch permanent-status treaty negotiations" based on a joint document that will be presented to the forum. Erekat said the issue of setting timelines would be discussed later.
"I think this will be left for the conference to decide," he said.
'Isolation' move
Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, hosted Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, at his Jerusalem residence.
After their meeting, the two leaders brought together their negotiating teams for the first time and instructed them to begin drafting the joint document starting next weeks.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, an adviser to Abbas, said no details about the joint document would be released while the negotiations are under way.
He said the document would eventually be presented to the decision-making body of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) as well as Olmert's cabinet.
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, plans to return to the region next week to assess the status of talks.
The conference is part of a US-led effort to bolster Abbas and his West Bank-based government and to isolate Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in June.