Following are excerpts from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's remarks at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting today:

"And now to the diplomatic issue – early next week, we will leave for the Annapolis meeting.  Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak will accompany me; they will participate in the meeting and address it.  This meeting, as I have said more than once, is not a conference for negotiations.  It is an important meeting, initiated by US President George Bush and it seems that a sufficient number of representatives from countries around the world will also attend.  I do not recommend that anyone overstate its importance and create exaggerated expectations but one certainly cannot understate the importance of the fact that the US President and, with him, the leaders of the most important countries in the world, are convening a meeting of such broad international stature in order to support the direct negotiations between us and the Palestinians.

Naturally, such negotiations will be accompanied by disagreements and arguments.  If everything was so simple, I imagine that we would have reached an agreement some time ago.  The fact is that there are disagreements; we do not hide them and we must settle them.  On some issues, those which are procedural, we hope to be able to reach agreement ahead of the Annapolis meeting, but the negotiations will begin after Annapolis and they will be very intensive, very serious and will deal with all the substantive issues that are an inseparable part of the process, which must lead to a solution of national states for two peoples.

We will make every effort to see to it that the representation of the Israeli position, of our concerns, of our expectations and of our hopes will receive the proper strength and proportion at this meeting in Annapolis.

The Cabinet will discuss this issue today and ministers will certainly be able to express their opinions."