Mideast Peace

The invitations were extended on Friday to foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Qatar as well as Arab League chief Amr Mussa during an international conference on Iraq in Sharm el-Sheik, a source with the German delegation said.

Members of the international quartet for Middle East peace, comprised of the EU, the United Nations, the United States and Russia, were to meet with the Arab foreign ministers here later
Friday.

At the conference Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdel Ilah Khatib warned the EU representatives and other Arab ministers and that there was now momentum in the peace process "that we cannot afford to lose," the source said.

At a March summit in Riyadh, Arab leaders revived a five-year-old peace plan that offers Israel normal relations if it withdraws from all land seized in the 1967 Middle East war, and allows for the creation of a Palestinian state and the return of Palestinian refugees.

Israel, which rejected the plan when it was first launched in 2002, has recently said it could provide a basis for talks, provided there are amendments on the refugee issue.

The European Union has seized on the initiative as a potential way out of the seemingly intractable conflict. Germany currently holds the rotating EU presidency.

Israeli politics complicating things

EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, who also took part in the meeting, said however that rising calls for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resign over last year's Lebanon war complicated peace efforts.

"At the moment there are probably few possibilities for a meeting between (Palestinian) president (Mahmud) Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert," she told reporters.

"But we hope that the situation in Israel will be resolved as soon as possible because it is extremely important to seize this moment."

She said Arab FMs she spoke with had echoed the importance of seizing the moment, describing the Arab peace initiative as "extremely important".

"They say this moment is so important now -- we should not waste any time and that is why I hope they we will manage to create some momentum... The Arabs want peace now -- they are ready for it," said Ferrero-Waldner.

Steinmeier began his six-day Middle East tour yesterday, his seventh to the region since taking office in November 2005.

He will travel to Riyadh Monday for talks with his Saudi counterpart Saud al-Faisal before wrapping up the trip there Tuesday at the conference of the 27-member EU and the GCC, grouping Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.