• Hussein: 'I am optimistic'
• Related stories and sites

AMMAN, Jordan (CNN) -- Jordan's King Hussein left on Tuesday for Washington where he and U.S. President Clinton will discuss how to push ahead the stalled Middle East peace process.

A Jordanian official said the king is scheduled to meet Clinton on Monday and also hold talks with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright during his private visit.

Israeli-Palestinian peace talks ground to a halt 15 months ago over Jewish housing expansion, Palestinian militant attacks and disputes over the extent of West Bank land transfers outlined in interim peace deals.

King Hussein has pledged his full support for U.S. efforts to push Israel to accept further troop redeployments from the West Bank in keeping with Israeli peace promises starting in 1993.

Hussein: 'I am optimistic'

Sunday, in comments made after meeting Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai in Amman, the king again criticized Israel's rejection of Washington's recent initiatives to move forward the paralyzed negotiations.

"It is critical at this delicate stage of the peace process to take a positive stance in every meaning of the word towards the U.S. proposals," the monarch was quoted as saying. However the monarch, without elaborating, said his talks with the Israeli minister made him more hopeful about a breakthrough in stalled peace talks.

"I am optimistic about what I heard from the Israeli defense minister and his efforts to brief me on the plans and scenarios relating to the peace process worked out with his colleagues," the king was quoted as saying by the state news agency Petra.

Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper said last week a U.S. draft proposal envisaged a three-stage Israeli handover of another 13 percent of West Bank land to Palestinians over 12 weeks linked to a Palestinian security clampdown.

The U.S. proposals have foundered with Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejecting them on security grounds. Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat has accepted them.

Jordan had the warmest relations of any Arab state with Israel after the two countries signed a peace treaty in 1994.

But since Netanyahu came to power in 1996, Jordan has grown increasingly critical of his reluctance to hand over captured Arab land to Palestinian rule.

King Hussein, whose country has already absorbed two waves of Palestinian refugees fleeing Arab-Israeli fighting, has warned that Netanyahu's policies could once again lead to regional unrest.

B A C K G R O U N D   I    K E Y   P L A Y E R S   I   M A P S