Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni shared hopes for a revived Middle East peace process, with Abbas calling for talks to begin straight away. "The time has come for us .. to make peace a reality," Abbas told an audience at the annual meeting of business and political leaders in Davos.
"We are ready, as of now, to start serious negotiations with our Israeli neighbours," he said during a discussion in which he and Livni shared a stage with Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres.
"The map (to peace ) is there, we have all agreed to it. I am convinced we can reach a quick solution," Abbas added.
The United States is due to host a meeting on February 2 of the diplomatic Quartet, whose 2003 "roadmap" for achieving Palestinian statehood and peace with Israel has languished since its inception.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said during a week-long trip to the Middle East and Europe earlier this month that she planned to "accelerate" implementation of the roadmap put forward by the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia.
Abbas is expected to meet Rice and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert next month.
Speaking after the Palestinian president, Livni was more circumspect about the timetable for a possible resumption of the road map, even as she stressed the need for both sides to stick to the vision of two states living side by side.
"The Palestinian state is not an illusion, its feasible, it's there, it's achievable," Livni said. "The establishment of a Palestinian state and homeland for the Palestinians is the answer, the national answer to the Palestinians wherever they are."
At the same time, Livni stressed that Israel would never "allow" a Palestinian state that was "ruled by a terrorist organisation."
Abbas and his secular Fatah party are locked in a power struggle with the radical Islamic movement Hamas, which controls the Palestinian government and has refused to recognize Israel.
