Israel will try diplomacy with the Palestinians until the end of the year before turning to a plan to set a border unilaterally in the occupied West Bank, a senior cabinet minister said yesterday.

Justice Minister Haim Ramon outlined Israel’s limited timeframe for talks after US President George W. Bush gave a surprise boost to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s plan to redraw the Jewish settlement map during meetings in Washington.

“We will devote this year sincerely, with a real and strong desire, to see if we can conduct negotiations with the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Abu Mazen,” Ramon told Israel Radio, using a nickname for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Olmert would “make this effort and try to see whether the ‘road map’ can be carried out,” Ramon said, referring to a US-backed plan that charts a path to Palestinian statehood. Israel would not hold formal peace talks with the Palestinians unless Hamas militants now running the government met US and European Union conditions to disavow violence, recognise Israel and abide by interim peace deals.

“We will not wait for years, and through the end of this year there will be diplomacy.” Ramon said. “If it turns out we don’t have a partner, we will move to the realignment plan,” he added, referring to Olmert’s plan to remove isolated settlements, expand larger settlement blocs and draw a unilateral border in the absence of peace talks.