SOLANA & THE MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROCESS

Solana Heads for Middle East to Seek Peace Conference

The European Union (EU) foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, left Brussels Wednesday for a Middle East tour in a bid to promote an international conference to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

His six-day tour will start with a meeting in Cairo on Wednesday evening with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns. The two sides will coordinate efforts to facilitate simultaneous political negotiations and reform of the Palestinian authorities.

"We have to take advantage of the current window of opportunity, with quite a considerable improvement in the security situation compared to a month ago, to relaunch a political process," Solana' s spokeswoman Cristina Gallach told reporters in Brussels.

She called Solana's trip to Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia an " exploratory mission" in concert with the efforts by the United Nations, the United States and Russia to get peace talks back on track.