PARIS, Aug 18: The Quai d’Orsay has confirmed that Paris will host an international meeting on Palestine here on October 21 — 23.

The meeting is to be held under the auspices of the Quartet — the contact group that includes the EU, US, UN and Russia — who for the occasion will be joined by representatives of the World Bank and, International Monetary Fund, as well as of Japan and Norway.

According to a French foreign ministry spokesman, the meeting will focus on the “reform of Palestinian institutions.”

Much of the impetus for the holding of an international conference in Paris came out of the July 25 “mini-summit” held in Paris between President Jacques Chirac and Egyptian head of state Hosni Mubarak, a meeting during which Mr Mubarak insisted that President Arafat should very well be allowed to run during Palestinian elections next year.

Indeed, President Mubarak insisted in a front-page interview in French daily Le Figaro that President Bush had “confided” to him during a recent conversation that in his — Bush’s — own estimation, “the real problem in the Middle East is hardly Yasser Arafat.”