Rice at the Yad Vashem holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. (Reuters)

Tel Aviv, Feb. 6 (Reuters): Condoleezza Rice began her first visit as secretary of state to the heart of the West Asian conflict today with Israelis and Palestinians already set on a new course of dialogue after four years of violence.

Flying into Israel from Turkey, she planned to hold talks later in the day with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem and tomorrow with new Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.

Both sides will hold a summit in Egypt on Tuesday on reviving a US-backed peace ?road map?, making the mission of Washington?s top diplomat less of an arm-twisting exercise and more of an affirmation of change after Yasser Arafat?s death.

Criticised for too little involvement in West Asian peace efforts in his first term, President George W. Bush sent Rice to the region to back up his pledge to press harder for an end to the conflict.

But she will not attend the summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh and signalled she preferred to see Sharon and Abbas make progress as free of foreign mediation as possible. ?I hope we would all get into a mind-set that says if the parties are able to continue to move on their own, that?s the very best outcome,? Rice, on an eight-day tour of Europe and West Asia, said en route to Ankara, the stop before Tel Aviv.

Abbas? election last month to succeed Arafat, viewed by the US and Israel as an obstacle to peace, has stirred international optimism, and Rice pledged to discuss ways for the sides to coordinate security and defuse crises.

One crisis was averted today when negotiators hammering out terms for the summit agreed to defer a decision on how many Palestinian prisoners Israel will release as a goodwill gesture.

Under the deal, a joint Israeli-Palestinian committee will review the release roster after Tuesday?s talks in what a Palestinian official called ?a positive step forward?.

Israel had disappointed the Palestinian leadership by refusing to include those jailed for deadly attacks among the 900 prisoners it intends to free.

Abbas is under enormous domestic pressure to secure freedom for 8,000 prisoners, among the most emotive issues for ordinary Palestinians, many of whom have relatives in Israeli jails.

Political analysts differ over how much the US should intensify a brokering role largely dormant under Bush, although he championed the ?road map? charting steps towards a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.