News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, attending the Sunday opening of the new Mediterranean Union (MU), asked summit host French President Nicolas Sarkozy to help advance talks with the Palestinian Authority (PA). The Prime Minister met with Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas at the Paris conference and told reporters, "We have never been as close to the possibility of reaching an accord as we are today."

Abbas welcomed Sarkozy's intervention, but French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner stated that he has not seen any progress in the negotiations despite his view of "winds of hope" blowing in the Middle East.