France says it is ready to host Middle East peace conference

France's foreign minister, Alain Juppe, speaking in Ramallah, warned that the stalemate between Israel and the Palestinians was untenable and France was willing to transform a meeting of international donors in July into a broader peace conference.

RAMALLAH // France is ready to host a Middle East peace conference before the end of July to help relaunch negotiations, France's foreign minister, Alain Juppe, said yesterday.

Speaking in Ramallah, Mr Juppe warned that the stalemate between Israel and the Palestinians was "untenable" and said France was willing to transform a July meeting of international donors into a broader peace conference.

"We would be prepared, on the basis of a request by the [Middle East] Quartet, to organise in Pari before the end of July, a conference that would not be simply for the donors but a broader political conference involving the negotiation process," he said.

Mr Juppe is holding meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials during a three-day trip, at a time that talks between the two sides are deadlocked over the issue of Jewish settlement construction.

In the absence of negotiations, the Palestinians have pledged to seek recognition and membership at the United Nations in September, a move criticised by Israel and the United States.

France has called for the urgent resumption of negotiations, which came to a halt shortly after they began in September 2010 when a partial freeze on Israeli settlement construction expired.

Israel refused to renew the freeze and the Palestinians insist they will not hold talks while settlements are being built on land they want for their future state.

Mr Juppe said: "We are convinced that if nothing happens here by September, the situation will be very difficult for the whole world when the United Nations General Assembly meets."

He proposed that new talks should proceed in two stages, with the first discussing security and borders, based on the 1967 lines, on the assumption that a final accord would include mutually agreed land swaps.

The second stage of the talks, which he said should be completed within a year from its start, would discuss Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees, he said.

France has expressed frustration with the stalled talks, and has hinted that it may recognise a Palestinian state if negotiations do not resume soon.

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, told L'Express magazine in May: "If the peace process is still dead in September, France will face up to its responsibilities on the central question of recognition of a Palestinian state.

"The idea that there is still plenty of time is dangerous. Things have to be brought to a conclusion" before September, he warned.

Mr Juppe arrived in Israel on Wednesday evening, shortly after a meeting with the Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Rome, and held talks in Jerusalem with his Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Lieberman.