Spain floats idea of new Madrid peace summit

CAIRO, Sep 27 (Reuters) Spain has floated the idea of a second West Asia peace summit along the lines of the Madrid conference which opened the way to direct peace talks between Israel and its neighbours in 1991.

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, who served as the European Union's West Asia envoy until 2003, said in an article published today that the quartet of West Asia mediators might also be expanded to include new countries.

''Perhaps it would be timely for all the interested parties to meet again, at the same level as in 1991, to reaffirm their commitment to a comprehensive solution and to the basic principles on which that should be based,'' he said in the article in the Arabic-language newspaper al-Hayat.

The Madrid peace conference of 1991 brought together former U S President George Bush, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and foreign ministers from Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt.

The conference was based on the principle that Israel should give up occupied land in return for peace with its Arab neighbours, as had already happened between Israel and Egypt.

It led to a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan in 1994 and a series of high-level talks between Israel and Syria, which came close to an agreement in 2000.

Moratinos said the war between Israel and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah this summer showed the futility of seeking military solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict or of trying to impose solutions unilaterally.

''At this stage the important thing is not to invent new solutions but to have the courage, the historic generosity and the political will to apply the formulas ... which have already been examined to a very large extent in the course of previous negotiations, such as Camp David and Taba,'' he added.

At Camp David in 2000 and at the Red Sea resort of Taba in early 2001, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators came close to agreement on the borders of a Palestinian state.

Subsequent Israeli governments stepped back from the proposals then on offer and have preferred to try unilateral solutions, such as building a barrier through the West Bank and withdrawing from the Gaza Strip without a formal agreement.

On the Quartet, which comprises the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, Moratinos said: ''(It) could incorporate the added value of some countries which are key to the region.'' The European Union and the Arab League, seeing an opportunity after the Lebanon war, have floated several proposals for reviving West Asia peace negotiations.

The Arab countries tried this month to persuade the U N Security Council to initiate a process but the United States, Israel's ally, prevented the council from making a statement.

REUTERS AB HT1805