Britain to host Fayyad and Olmert for separate talks this month

Britain will host a meeting of Israeli and Palestinian leaders this month to discuss the political and economic situation in the region, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Wednesday.

"We are bringing Israeli and Palestinian leaders to London later in December to establish how best we can use 2009 to make real progress towards political and economic solutions in the region," Brown told parliament.

A spokesman for Brown said he had invited Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to visit London on Dec. 15.

Brown would hold separate talks with the two leaders but they would not meet each other, he said.

"They will discuss the economic regeneration of Palestine and the prospects for peace in 2009," a Foreign Office spokeswoman said.

Brown's spokesman said Fayyad was coming to London for a Palestinian investment conference, a follow-up to a meeting in Bethlehem in May when private investors pledged to pump $1.4 billion into Palestinian businesses to bolster the economy.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday that sheexpects the new U.S. administration of President-elect Barack Obama to pursue the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that was promoted by President George W. Bush.

The peace plan was drafted at a conference last year in Annapolis, Maryland.

Speaking to reporters after meeting with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman during his first official visit to Berlin, Merkel called Annapolis "a very important step" that has now stalled again.

Bush's administration had hoped to see a deal before the end of his term in January, but Merkel said that the entrance of the new administration meant a more realistic timeline to implement the plan was possible.

Merkel also said that Germany is working out the details for an expansion of an ongoing program to help Lebanon patrol its border with Syria.