Israeli parliament speaker Dalia Itzik met Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Sunday in Jordan for talks on reviving the stalled Middle East peace process, officials said.

Itzik met the Palestinian president for more than an hour and was seen off by Abbas who shook hands and kissed her when bidding farewell, an AFP correspondent said.

No statements were made after the talks, but Israeli embassy spokesman Itai Bardov said earlier there had been a "very warm atmosphere."

Abbas and Itzik arrived separately in Jordan for the meeting and the Palestinian president was accompanied by top negotiator Saeb Erakat.

Before meeting Abbas, the Israeli speaker held talks with Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdel Ilah Khatib about a call by US President George W. Bush for a Middle East peace conference to be held later this year, Bardov said.

The two also discussed Khatib's planned visit to Israel, set for Wednesday, the spokesman added.

Khatib and his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Abul Gheit will visit Israel on behalf of the Arab League in a bid to help reactivate the peace process.

Itzik's spokesman in Jerusalem earlier told AFP her talks in the Jordanian capital with Abbas and Khatib would focus on "the means to jump-start peace initiatives in the region."

The Arab League has tasked Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab countries to have signed peace treaties with Israel, with trying to persuade the Jewish state to accept a Saudi-inspired peace plan that the body revived at a March summit.

The blueprint offers Israel full normalised relations in return for withdrawing from Arab land occupied in the 1967 Six Day War, the creation of a Palestinian state and a return of refugees.

Last week Bush also called for Arab nations to reach out to Israel in order to shore up the beleaguered Palestinian president and join an international conference to revive political progress.

As part of the diplomatic flurry, Jordan's King Abdullah II is due to meet Bush in Washington on Tuesday, while on Monday the new special envoy of the Middle East Quartet, Tony Blair, visits Jordan at the start of a three-day trip to the region.

AFP

Güncelleme Tarihi: 22 Temmuz 2007, 19:08