PARIS, April 10: Meeting in Leipzig, Germany, French and German foreign ministers Hubert Vedrine and Joschka Fischer have come up with a joint plan whose set objective is not only putting an end to Israeli incursions into the Palestinian territories, but also providing a new framework in which Israeli and Palestinian representatives could sit down together at last to work out a viable peace plan for the Middle East.

A spokesman for Mr Vedrine says that the two ministers had “profound” discussions over recent events in the occupied territories, and that both men expressed disappointment with EU Middle East policy as a whole and agreed to do all in their power to contribute to the success of the forthcoming visit of US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Although France has not yet formally replied to the peace plan as initiated by Mr Fischer, Mr Vedrine is known to have assured Mr Fischer that he, for one, welcomed very positively the German Foreign Minister’s initiative

What differentiates Mr Fischer’s plan from that proposed by Prince Abdullah, however, is that it perhaps comes up with a solution to the ages-old problem.

The German Foreign Minister would like to impose, with his plan, a framework which would resemble very much that in which the fate of ex-Yugoslavia was negotiated, that is, any talks between Israel and Palestinian representatives would be overseen by a contact group.