(Adds Israel confirms meeting set for Wednesday)

By Adam Entous

JERUSALEM, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet on Wednesday to try to narrow differences over a U.S.-led conference on Palestinian statehood, officials said on Sunday.

Israeli government spokesman David Baker said the meeting would take place in Olmert's residence in Jerusalem, with negotiating teams from either side holding their first formal talks separately.

The teams will work on a "joint statement to be presented at the conclusion of the upcoming international meeting", Baker said.

Baker and a senior Palestinian negotiator said the Abbas-Olmert meeting, initially scheduled for Tuesday, would take place on Wednesday. Baker cited "technical reasons" for the delay.

Palestinian sources said Abbas was holding previously unscheduled meetings in Jordan following a visit to Egypt.

The Palestinian negotiator denied that talks between the negotiating teams had been set. "That will be decided tomorrow (Monday)," the negotiator said.

Olmert is seeking a broad-brush joint statement for the conference, planned for mid-to-late November. Abbas wants an explicit "framework" agreement with a timeline for implementation.

"We have to go there with a clear and specific document, after which it could be possible to start detailed negotiations on what we call final status issues," Abbas said in Cairo on Sunday after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

"I believe that going there with a general statement would not be beneficial," he said.

A U.S. official said on Sunday that the conference's venue would likely be the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland rather than the presidential retreat at Camp David, site of previous Middle East peace talks that had varying degrees of success.

FINAL STATUS?

It was unclear to what extent Olmert was prepared to meet Abbas's appeal to delve deeply into the "final status" issues key to the establishment of a Palestinian state -- borders, the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.

Olmert has been weakened politically since last year's war in Lebanon, raising doubts among Israelis and Palestinians about his ability to deliver on peace promises.

Abbas, too, wields limited power since Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip in June. Israel has said it plans to release 87 Palestinian prisoners on Monday as a goodwill gesture towards Abbas.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would visit the region in mid-October "for consultations with the Palestinian and Israeli parties, Egypt and maybe other Arab states to prepare for the conference", the official Middle East News Agency reported.

Olmert and Abbas have been meeting regularly since June as part of a U.S.-led campaign to shore up the Fatah leader in the occupied West Bank and to isolate Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

(Additional reporting by Wafa Amr in Ramallah and Cairo bureau)

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