Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected French attempts to organise an international conference to restart Middle East peace talks. At a meeting with French prime minister Manuel Valls he proposed bilateral talks with the Palestinians instead, reports RFI.
Netanyahu told Valls that direct talks were "the only way to proceed to peace," and suggested "a different French initiative" of face-to-face talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Paris.
Valls promised to talk to President François Hollande about that proposal.
Valls was on the second day of a visit to Israel, where he had gone to explain the French initiative to Netanyahu, who had already reacted negatively to the idea when French foreign affairs minister Jean-Marc Ayrault discussed it with him earlier this month.
France has called a meeting of foreign ministers from about 20 countries, without the Israelis or Palestinians, for 3 June to try to lay the basis for a multilateral peace conference in the autumn.
The Palestinians, whom Valls was to meet after seeing Netanyahu, have welcomed the move.
They refuse to meet the Israelis unless the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is halted.