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Mediterranean union launched with Mideast peace hopes

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy and more than 40 leaders on Sunday launched a new Union for the Mediterranean, hoping to inject momentum in Middle East peace efforts.

The new forum brings together the 27 countries of the European Union with states from north Africa, the Balkans and Arab nations with Israel to foster cooperation in one of the world's most volatile regions.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad scored a comeback on the international stage after years of isolation, taking his seat alongside Arab leaders at the same table with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Sarkozy said Arab states had made a "gesture of peace" by attending the inaugural summit of the new union and proclaimed that a "great initiative has been born."

Capping the summit held at the grandiose glass-domed Grand Palais near the Seine River, leaders issued a founding declaration of the 43-member union, home to 756 million people from the shores of Greenland to the deserts of Jordan.

The heads of state and government agreed on a batch of modest projects such as cleaning up pollution in the Mediterranean Sea, improving shipping routes and developing solar energy.

But the Middle East peace process loomed large over the gathering, with a flurry of meetings on the sidelines underscoring the need for progress.

"We are certain that a new page will open in this cooperation that will lead us toward more peace," said the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who co-chaired the summit with Sarkozy.

With a corruption scandal at home threatening to bring him down, Olmert met with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas. "We have never been as close to an accord as we are today," he said.

The Israeli prime minister also met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who then met Assad, the latest in a string of indirect talks since May -- but according to an Israeli diplomatic source the first at a high level.

After meeting with Assad, Erdogan said he had high hopes that face-to-face peace negotiations between Syria and Israel would happen.

Assad however has poured cold water on a quick resumption of direct talks, saying this would probably not happen before next year, after the election of a new U.S. president.

Israel and Syria have technically remained at war since the 1948 creation of the Jewish state.

On the sidelines of the summit, France stepped up its Middle East diplomacy, with Sarkozy hosting talks with all the major players including a landmark meeting between Assad and Lebanon's new president Michel Sleiman on Saturday.

Later that same day, Syria and Lebanon announced they would establish diplomatic relations, opening embassies in each country's capitals for the first time since independence.

Through his energetic lobbying, Sarkozy persuaded almost all of the leaders to attend, although the Elysee bowed to objections and dropped plans for an official group photograph.

And although Assad and Abbas stepped out of the hall when Olmert spoke at the summit, diplomats denied it was a boycott of the Israeli prime minister.

"No one caused any kind of incident," Sarkozy said at the news conference. "Mr Assad was very present throughout the whole afternoon."

Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi was the only Arab head of state to boycott the meeting, while Jordan's King Abdullah II and King Mohammed VI of Morocco sent senior representatives.

The French president, who championed the idea of the new grouping during his election campaign last year, said leaders had to "learn to love each other in the Mediterranean, instead of continuing to hate and wage war."

The union aims to build on the EU's 13-year-old Barcelona process set up for the Mediterranean countries, which was plagued by disputes between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

France and Egypt are to set up a joint presidency of the new union and summits will be held every two years.

A secretariat will also be created to supervise the projects, but its composition and location are to be decided in November, Sarkozy said.

© Wire reports

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

7 Comments
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LOL!

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Rather have them all talking than bombing.

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They sat at the same table? It's a start.

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They're going to accomplish about as much as the G-8 did.

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Agreed, they might not achieve much.

Bus as what said while they are talking they are not fighting and killing each other and ruining their economies.

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Now if we can just get our ass out of the MiddleEast. < :-)

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Middle east peace via mediterranean Union role modeling European Union.

This is good, and can only get better with time.

Palestinians should get out impoverishment via Mediterranean Union,is big rise in economic hopes for them in the region.

Palestine economy will gain most from Mediterranean region Union.

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