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Some understandings have been reached in negotiations with the Palestinians, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday, without elaborating.

Olmert was speaking at the opening session of Facing Tomorrow, the Israeli presidential conference in Jerusalem that will host US President George W. Bush later this week.

He said the talks with the Palestinians are important because it is vital to determine Israel’s final borders in a way that will be recognized by the world. “As long as the borders of the state of Israel are not fixed according to this idea,” he said, “our vision of the future will not be fulfilled.”

He said the basis of peace talks is creation of a Palestinian state to live in peace next to Israel.

Concerning the negotiations, Olmert said, “There is some real progress, and some important understandings have been reached in important areas, though not in all areas.”

Palestinian officials said Tuesday that there were no such understandings. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.

Bush is due to address the conference, which is hosted by Israeli President Shimon Peres, on Wednesday evening.

Speaking before Olmert, President Shimon Peres, who is the conference’s host, said

Iran represented the past, while Israel represented the future.

The president said that a country like Iran belonged to the past, and that it should not be feared. He said holding the conference was the answer to the Islamic republic.

Peres also addressed the southern front, saying that “if it weren’t for Hamas, a Palestinian state would already exist.”

“We have no right to postpone any longer the peace all the world’s peoples wait for. I hear around me the sighs of an era coming to a close. Look at the promises of the future, not the threats of the past,” he added.

“Hamas has rockets but no future. It might take [Israel] some time, but we will have a future, and it will not be tainted by threats of rocket fire.”

Peres went on to say that 60 years of astonishing independence for a small country like Israel could be seen today.

He continued by saying that whilst perhaps Israel would not grow in a geographical sense, and that it may even shrink in the near future, if yet another nation is established in the region, Israel would grow ideologically and intellectually.

Peres highlighted the differences between Lebanon and Israel, saying that he viewed them as two very different countries. Lebanon, he said, used obsolete weaponry, whereas the future of Israel could be seen at conferences such as the one being held in Jerusalem this week.

Several world leaders and dignitaries from the past and present were in attendance at the conference’s opening session, including Quartet envoy Tony Blair, former Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev and former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger.