PARIS, July 20: Two key players in the Middle East peace negotiations are to be received later next week by French President Jacques Chirac, as Paris continues to let it be known that it plans to have a say in the holding of an international conference on the region.

On Thursday (July 25), President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt is to take part in a meeting with Chirac, then lunch with the French president at the Elysee Palace. The following day, it will be the turn of Jordan’s King Abdullah to spend the day with Chirac.

The French president let it be known, in announcing the meetings, that faced with the inability of other proposals to make any headway, he himself had decided to make use of France’s “special ties” with the Middle East to “relaunch” the peace process on his own.

But then, stressed a spokesman, in undertaking its own initiatives, France would do nothing that might interfere with initiatives recently taken by the European Union. It would indeed attempt to coordinate its efforts not only with the EU, but also Moscow and Washington.

Chirac is known to have discussed his ideas on the Middle East with Russian President Putin during the his visit this week to Russia, and is to have telephoned US President Bush in recent days, with a view to keeping him informed as to what France was doing with regard to peace in the Middle East, along with the lifting of the US President’s apparent opposition to the holding of an international conference at the present moment.