There has been a burst of diplomatic activity in the Middle East over lately with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and chief of the Palestinian Administration Mahmoud Abbas paying separate visits to Egypt recently. On Tuesday, the Egyptian foreign minister welcomed his Jordanian, Spanish, Tunisian and French counterparts to a conference in Cairo. The same day, the Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud and King Abdullah II of Jordan met in Riyadh. Scheduled for Wednesday in Amman are talks between Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad Hariri and his Jordanian counterpart Samir Al Rifai.
The meetings came as a renewed attempt to promote the resumption of the Middle East peace talks suspended in December 2008 over the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip.
Vladimir Akhmedov, an expert at the Institute for Eastern Studies in Moscow, believes the past year was wasted for the Middle East peace process:
"No progress was made whatsoever. Just the opposite, things got further deadlocked with no way out seen, given the current political balance and moods in the United States. In my opinion, the Israeli and U.S. leadership are to blame for the missed opportunities. President Obama's promises made during his visits to Egypt and Ankara have failed to shape into practical moves".
Israel, too, has not gone beyond verbal commitments and looks set to continue building Jewish settlements on Palestinian territories, the main stumbling block to the resumption of the peace talks.
With the sides virtually unable to compromise, hopes are being pinned international mediators. The Security Council will meet to debate the issue on January 27 and the same month Mahmoud Abbas is planning to visit Moscow. Finally, the U.S. president's special envoy George Mitchell will probably bring some initiatives when he arrives in the Middle East in the second half of January.
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