Tel Aviv - Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told Israelis and Palestinians Thursday he hoped for deeper European Union involvement in the peace process, and expressed optimism that a Palestinian state would be established soon. "We need to work to improve conditions for negotiations," he said in a joint news conference in Ramallah with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
"We have a US administration that supports the peace process and many countries also support it. We have a common idea and that is we should recognize the Palestinian state," he said.
The Spanish leader said Spain intends to reduce the time required to establish the Palestinian state once it assumes presidency of the EU on January 1.
The peace process is facing many problems, he said, "and therefore we have to continue to work hard and in full cooperation with the Palestinian Authority" to overcome these problems.
Earlier, Zapatero, speaking of Spain's impending EU presidency, had told Israeli Premier Shimon Peres that "we cannot let this period pass without working intensively to advance the peace process. This is an important task. We have to work with trust and full cooperation with the administration of President Obama. "
Abbas, for his part, insisted that peace talks will not resume unless Israel halts all settlement activities in the West Bank.
"We are ready to resume negotiations but not before settlements stop in total," he said.
In Ramallah, Zapatero also voiced concern that a UN report which harshly criticised Israel for its offensive in the Gaza Strip at the turn of the year could impede the peace process.
"It may weaken the dialogue," he said of the report, issued by a commission headed by South African Judge Richard Goldstone.
"This is my opinion. We should not make such issues obstruct dialogue." However, he said, "we must respect human rights."
Israel, which did not cooperate with the commission, has blasted the reportand Peres, meeting with Zapatero in the morning, told his guest that the Jewish state would not accept that a majority hostile to Israel "would sit in judgement on it."
Peres was the first meeting the Spanish leader held after he arrived in Israel Thursday morning for a 24-hour visit which, in addition to the talks with Abbas, also include a dinner with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Spanish leader kicked off his visit witha tour of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Centre in Jerusalem.
He toured the centre's museum and its hall of names, where as many names as are known of the 6 million Jews slaughtered in the Holocaust are displayed, and, wearing a skullcap, lit a memorial flame.
"Six million, six million .. barbarism, pain, memory. Peace, peace. With my affection for the Jewish people, with my friendship toward Israel," he wrote in Spanish in the centre's guestbook.
