(Adds Rice meets Barak, Abu Rdainah quote)

By Arshad Mohammed

JERUSALEM, Oct 14 (Reuters) - U.S Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice began a Middle East visit on Sunday by voicing doubts Israel and the Palestinians would agree during her 4-day trip on parameters for a conference on Palestinian statehood.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams are holding meetings to hammer out a joint document addressing "core issues" for the U.S.-sponsored international meeting expected to be held late next month in Annapolis, Maryland.

"I don't expect ... that there will be any particular outcome in the sense of breakthroughs on the document," Rice told reporters as she flew to Tel Aviv from Moscow.

"I would just warn in advance not to expect that, because this is really a work in progress," Rice said, holding out the possibility she would return to the region in a few weeks.

Israel has sought to address in general terms the most divisive aspects of the Middle East conflict -- borders of a Palestinian state, the future of the holy city of Jerusalem, and the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been pressing for a document with a timetable for dealing with those issues and moving Palestinians closer to statehood.

"The success of Rice's efforts requires reaching a clear statement that will include the final-status issues, in addition to stopping the settlement projects that aim to isolate Jerusalem and divide the West Bank," Nabil Abu Rdainah, an Abbas aide, told Reuters.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his cabinet, where he faces right-wing opposition to any major peace moves, that he expected the conference to be followed by "discussions on the possibility of founding a Palestinian state."

But he said that "setting a timetable for this process in advance would create more problems than it would solve."

As she flew to Israel, Rice said she was "rather suspicious of timetables." She said, however, "everyone will want to have a sense that once the process of negotiations begins that it's going to continue to have a sort of forward momentum."

'GETTING ALONG QUITE WELL'

Rice met Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday and then planned to see Olmert as well as other senior members of the Labour, Kadima and the ultra-Orthodox Shas parties -- all members of the ruling coalition -- to touch base with politicians across the Israeli political spectrum.

Shas, a key member of Olmert's coalition, generally opposes territorial compromise and a party leader has called on the prime minister to discuss only economic matters at the parley.

Olmert on Sunday named Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a political rival who has cautioned against moving too quickly towards an agreement, as chief Israeli negotiator on the joint document.

Rice also plans to meet Abbas in the West Bank during her visit, which will include a trip to Egypt on Tuesday and talks in London with Jordan's King Abdullah at the end of the week.

During her previous visit last month, Rice urged Israelis and Palestinians to draft a document laying the basis for serious negotiations at the gathering, which Washington hopes will attract wide Arab participation.

Israeli, Palestinian and Western officials said last week real progress would depend on narrowing differences over the fate of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees, displaced when Israel was founded in 1948.

Palestinians want Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem as the capital of the state they hope to create in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its capital, a claim not recognised internationally. (Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Jeffrey Heller and Adam Entous in Jerusalem)

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