US Secretary of State John Kerry has put his nine-month quest for an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord on indefinite hold, though his spokeswoman denied that his effort has been a failure.

Earlier, President Barack Obama said the Mid-East conflict has been going on "for 60, 70, 80 years. We didn't anticipate that we were going to solve it during the course of a six or nine-month negotiation''.

Yet, that was the goal Mr Kerry announced last July 30 when he launched his peacemaking effort, saying "our objective will be to achieve a final status agreement over the course of the next nine months''.

Mr Kerry subsequently scaled back his ambitions, first to producing a "framework" for an eventual settlement, and then to creating a minimal basis for continuing the talks beyond the initial nine-month period, which ends on April 29.

This week, officials have sought to shift the focus from the inconclusive US effort to what Mr Obama criticised as a "lack of political will" by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.