Leaders of seven European governments, meeting Sunday at a hastily arranged summit, reaffirmed their support for the military, diplomatic and humanitarian activities of the US-led coalition against terrorism.
The leaders, including those of the five European countries which have made military commitments to the coalition, also stressed their determination to reinvigorate the Middle East peace process.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who visited key Middle Eastern countries last week, organized the dinner meeting at his London office. It set the stage for his trip to Washington tomorrow to meet with US President George W. Bush.
Blair was joined by French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Spanish Premier Jose Maria Aznar -- all of whom have offered military support for the US-led war against Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan's Taliban regime.
The dinner was also attended by Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium, which currently holds the EU presidency; Javier Solana, the EU's chief of foreign and security policy; Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok and French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.
"There was absolute solidarity around the diplomatic, military and humanitarian effort and the need to reinvigorate the Middle East peace process," said a Downing Street spokesman on customary condition of anonymity.
The spokesman said the dinner meeting, which lasted just over two hours, had allowed a "very useful discussion" and allowed the leaders to "get an overview of the situation." He said it was particularly "timely" as both Blair and Chirac are scheduled to visit Washington later in the week.
The spokesman said Blair had briefed his guests on last week's trip to the Middle East, which was aimed at shoring up Muslim support for the military campaign and rekindling the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Schroeder, who has just returned from talks with Russia's President Vladimir Putin, and Aznar, who plunged into the Middle Eastern impasse last week, also gave feedback on their own diplomatic talks.
Aznar and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat this weekend on the sidelines of an economic conference on the Spanish resort island of Mallorca.
Verhofstadt was supposed to be meeting with Middle East leaders yesterday, said the spokesman, who gave no further details of those talks.
The Sunday summit was visible demonstration of an emphasis on consultation among European leaders. Blair had delayed his return from the Middle East on Thursday to meet late at night in Genoa, Italy with Berlusconi -- who had been miffed at being excluded from a French-German-British meeting last month on the fringe of an EU summit.
Earlier, Blair's official spokesman downplayed the meeting as an opportunity of the leaders to "swap notes" and said it did not represent a "big new initiative."
The talks came as airstrikes on Afghanistan entered their fifth week, and more US special forces entered the country to support anti-Taliban rebels.
Blair's relentless round of diplomacy has produced mixed results. On his whistle-stop tour of the Middle East, he encouraged moderate Muslims to "capture back the ground" from Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, but admitted that a gulf existed between the West and the Muslim world.
"We have to reach across the gulf," he said.
And he acknowledged he had only modest hopes of restarting genuine negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians
"I think this is the possibility," Blair said in a television interview after he returned from the trip on Thursday. "I wouldn't put it any higher than that -- that we can prepare the ground to move the Middle East peace process forward."
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