(Edits)

By Wafa Amr

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Palestinian negotiators on their way to a session of talks in Israel on Sunday said they were blocked at an Israeli checkpoint and had called off the discussions, asking that they be moved abroad.

The two sides have been meeting regularly in preparation for a peace conference in the United States later this month.

"We cannot carry out negotiations like this," chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qurie said, after Israeli soldiers blocked his team near Jerusalem.

Negotiators are struggling to narrow differences over a joint statement to be presented at the conference, due to take place in Annapolis, Maryland, in late November.

An aide to Qurie said his team told Israel they wanted to move the preparatory talks to another country but gave no details.

"It shouldn't have happened ... that's not good for peace," said Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who leads the Israeli negotiating team. He said Livni called Qurie after the incident, promising an investigation.

Earlier, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held out to his divided people a vision of statehood within reach.

In a forceful speech on the third anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death, Abbas repeated there could be no dialogue with Hamas Islamists who seized control of the Gaza Strip earlier this year, until what he described as the "black coup" was reversed.

Tens of thousands of flag-waving Palestinians turned out at the Muqata presidential compound in Ramallah, a West Bank city long a Fatah bastion, to remember the iconic late leader, show their support for Abbas and shout their condemnation of Hamas.

"These forces of darkness will not be able to hijack our history or close the windows to our future," Abbas said at the rally, referring to Hamas, which opposes his peace efforts with Israel.

"HISTORIC OPPORTUNITY"

Abbas said the conference was "a historic opportunity to open a new page in the history of the Middle East based on the establishment of our independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital".

In Gaza, Fatah supporters held rallies to honour Arafat, including a demonstration by some 10,000 people in the Bureij refugee camp, the largest since Hamas seized the territory.

At one rally, Hamas security forces clashed with Fatah supporters, firing into the air and wounding two demonstrators, Fatah officials said. Hamas officials had no immediate comment.

Preparations for the conference have been overshadowed by disputes over what issues to tackle.

Abbas gave no indication in his address whether progress had been made in bridging the gap with Israel on the wording of a joint document to be presented at the gathering.

Qurie and other members of Abbas's team had been scheduled to meet Israeli negotiators inside Israel late on Sunday. The teams have been meeting regularly in advance of the Annapolis conference. (Writing by Ari Rabinovitch and Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; Editing by Andrew Dobbie)

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