RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Thursday that settlement building in the occupied West Bank did not "advance the cause of peace", but stopped short of demanding a construction freeze to enable negotiations to resume. Speaking at a joint news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Obama said he remained committed to the creation of an "independent, viable and contiguous" Palestinian state, but said achieving that goal would not be easy.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is set to return to Jerusalem on Saturday to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after a visit by US President Barack Obama, a US official confirmed. "Secretary Kerry will likely meet PM Netanyahu on Saturday to review the results of the president's visit following his stops in Ramallah and Amman," the State Department official said. jkb/jm

Barack Obama was on his way to Israel Wednesday for the first time as US president, hoping to ease past tensions with his hosts and under pressure to narrow differences over handling Iran's nuclear threat. Obama's long-awaited visit, the debut overseas trip of his second term, comes as Israel's new government settles in and will also expose Obama's diminished ambitions of forging peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The president's airplane, Air Force One, took off at 8:15 pm (0015 GMT Wednesday) from Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington.

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