1:50pm UK, Sunday July 13, 2008

Israeli and Palestinian leaders have “never been closer” to a peace deal, Ehud Olmert has declared.

 

Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas with the French president

The Israeli prime minister’s comments came after talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the launch of the Mediterranean Union in Paris.

He said: “It seems to me that we have never been as close to the possibility of reaching an accord as we are today.

“It seems that we have reached the time when the Palestinian authorities and the Israelis have to take serious and important decisions that will finally take us to where we have never been before.” 

Mr Olmert and Mr Abbas launched US-sponsored peace negotiations last year with the aim of achieving an agreement before President Bush steps down next January. 

But progress has been blighted by violence and mutual recrimination.

Mr Abbas voiced hope “that we can arrive at peace within a number of months”.

Speaking through an interpreter, he said: “We have started detailed negotiations with Mr Olmert … We are totally serious. Both of us are serious.”

Meanwhile, Mr Olmert said Israel hopes to have direct talks with Syria in the near future.

Leaders of the rival neighbours have recently been holding indirect talks mediated by Turkey.

Bur Mr Olmert said he hopes “it will soon become direct contacts”.

Syria’s President Bashar Assad had earlier said the talks could move toward direct contact.

But he suggested this would not happen until there is a new American president in place.

Mr Assad is also in France for the summit of around 40 leaders from across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

The pair will sit around the same table for the first time – there has been no high-level contact between the countries since 2000.

And observers say that a handshake between the two men would mark considerable progress in Israeli-Syrian relations.

But no talks between them are planned.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy first floated the Union idea during last year’s presidential campaign as “a great dream of peace and a great dream of civilisation”.

He said the new group will help countries “learn to love each other”.

“It doesn’t mean that all of the problems are resolved of course,” he said.

“But the goal of the summit… is that we learn how to love each other in the Mediterranean, instead of continuing to hate and wage war.”

The president – who currently holds the EU presidency – said the gathering of such a large number of leaders around the same table was “an historic event”.

However, Libyan President Moamer Kadhafi is boycotting the meeting, while Jordan’s King Abdullah II and King Mohammed VI of Morocco are sending senior representatives.