Israel has told the US there can be no deal for a Palestinian state unless its own security is guaranteed.

Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that security for her country had to come first.

Ms Rice is in the region to prepare the ground for a planned peace conference in the US city of Annapolis, Maryland, later this month.

She will later hold a news conference with Middle East envoy Tony Blair.

On Monday, Ms Rice will travel to the West Bank for talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Ms Livni insisted that progress could be made once the Palestinians agreed to implement their obligations under a long-stalled US-backed "road map" for peace.

"The meaning is security for Israel first and then the establishment of a Palestinian state," she said. "Nobody wants to see another terror state in the region."

Israel has been concerned about the takeover of Gaza in June by the Islamist movement Hamas, which does not recognize the state of Israel and is branded a terrorist organization by Israel, the US and the EU.

Mr Abbas's Fatah group remains in control of the West Bank.

'Knotty discussions'

Ms Rice is on her eighth visit to the region this year, hoping to inject life into the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. But expectations of her visit and the Maryland conference are low.

The Palestinians want a clear timetable for resolving some of the most sensitive issues in the conflict, including the status of Jerusalem and the borders of a Palestinian state.

Israel has rejected written deadlines, saying the whole process can be damaged if they are missed.

The two sides have been holding an intensive round of bilateral talks but Ms Rice admitted her aim for now was just to encourage Israelis and Palestinians to keep trying.

"I don't expect to reach an agreement on a document," she told reporters on the plane to Tel Aviv on Saturday evening.

"They are going through some knotty discussions and I think those knotty discussions are going to continue for a while... I just want to help make sure that they are working in a straight line ahead."

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Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas