Israel’s Foreign Minister has ruled out any permanent peace deal for years to come, even as the US envoy to the region called for a swift resumption of peace talks.

Instead of pushing for a final status agreement that would create a Palestinian state, Avigdor Lieberman, the head of the far-right Yisrael Beitenu party, said that the two sides should aim for a series of interim accords.

“What is possible to reach is a long-term intermediate agreement ... that leaves the tough issues for a much later stage,” Mr Lieberman said before the latest visit by George Mitchell, the US envoy appointed this year by President Obama.

Those issues include the future status of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and final borders — all thorny topics that have derailed peace talks over the past 16 years.

“I will tell [Mr Mitchell] clearly, there are many conflicts in the world that haven’t reached a comprehensive solution and people learnt to live with it,” Mr Lieberman said. The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas has said that it is willing to agree to a long-term ceasefire but that it will not recognise Israel as a state.

Mr Lieberman’s comments were at odds with the message that Mr Mitchell — a veteran negotiator who helped to steer Northern Ireland to peace — brought from the Washington administration, which is already stinging from a recent Israeli snub to its call for a total freeze on Jewish settlement-building in the West Bank. Mr Lieberman himself lives in one of those settlements.

Mr Mitchell tried to strike a determined, upbeat note on his arrival in Israel, despite rising tensions in Jerusalem and reports by the Israeli anti-settlement group, Peace Now, that more settlements are being laid out in the Palestinian territories. “We’re going to continue with our efforts to achieve an early relaunch of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians,” he said before meeting Shimon Peres, the Israeli President, who emphasised the growing urgency of the situation.

“I think that expectations are becoming higher and the time is becoming shorter,” Mr Peres said. “There are quite a few elements that would like to kill prospects for peace.”

The most dire warning came from King Abdullah of Jordan, whose country is one of only two Arab states to have signed peace deals with Israel. A staunch ally of the United States, the king told the Israeli daily Haaretz that rising tensions between Palestinians and Israelis in Jerusalem and the continued construction of settlements were a threat to regional stability.

“We are sliding back into the darkness,” he said. “Is Israel going to be fortress Israel or is it going to be part of the neighbourhood? Because if there is no two-state solution, what future do we all have together?”

Tensions in Jerusalem’s historic Old City have steadily increased for the past week; Israeli police restricted access to Muslim worshippers while thousands of Jewish and Christians poured into the area for religious ceremonies. Palestinian youths have fought running skirmishes with Israeli police, who also arrested an Israeli Arab Islamic Party leader on charges of inciting violence.

King Abdullah warned that Jerusalem was “a tinderbox that will have a major flashpoint throughout the Islamic world.” Even as Mr Mitchell tried to persuade Israelis and Palestinians to return to the bargaining table, efforts to sign a reconciliation agreement between the two main Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, were again strained to breaking point.

After more than a year of Egyptian-brokered talks, the two rivals had agreed to meet next week to sign a pact. Hamas said yesterday, though, that it had asked Egypt to postpone the meeting in protest at the failure by Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah leader, to endorse a UN report into the Gaza war this year which found both Israel and Hamas guilty of war crimes.

Aides to Mr Abbas have admitted that the delay was a diplomatic mistake that had cost him support. Palestinian officials said that they came under US pressure not to back the report after Israel said that such action would jeopardise the future of peace talks.

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