PARIS - President Hosni Mubarak arrived in Paris Sunday for talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy ahead of a visit to the US to take part in the re-launch of direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Egypt's official Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported. Mubarak will join in Washington an inaugural meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Thursday's meeting, which will be chaired by US President Barack Obama, will launch the first direct negotiations between the two sides since the Palestinians broke off talks in December 2008 after Israel launched a devastating offensive against the Gaza Strip. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the European Union should be represented by its foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. "It would be a shame if there was no European representation," Kouchner said at the end of a conference of French ambassadors. Ashton then refused to join the talks saying she could not attend them because of a China trip, and she had no place there anyway. Kouchner referred to the fact that EU countries are the major contributors of Palestinian aid, but the EU plays second fiddle diplomatically behind the United States. The EU is part of the Middle East quartet, along with Russia, the United Nations and the United States. "The hopes raised by American mediation have been slow to be realised," Kouchner said, but the resumption of talks "invites us to be a little more optimistic after a year punctuated by crises".
