British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook arrived in Israel on Wednesday to lend his diplomatic weight to international peace efforts in the Middle East.
Cook immediately headed into a meeting with Israel's acting Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami in Tel Aviv and is due later to meet other officials including Prime Minister Ehud Barak before holding talks with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Gaza, diplomats said.
He was also expected to take in Jordan and Syria during his Middle East haul, his office said Tuesday.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and the European Union's foreign policy and security chief, Javier Solana, are already in the region.
Violence in Israel, the West Bank and southern Lebanon over the past two weeks has devastated the peace process and claimed around 100 lives, mainly of Palestinians.
Meanwhile, EU foreign policy and security chief, Javier Solana said that diplomatic efforts to bridge the Palestinian-Israeli gap over a commission to investigate the causes of two weeks of violence look likely to succeed.
"In the coming hours, I hope we will be able to come to a conclusion accepted by everybody," Solana told a news conference in Cairo.
"I would like to convey to you my sentiment that things may be moving in that direction," he said.
The Palestinians have pushed for an international investigation, but Israel has rejected the idea.
Discussions still centered on the "structure" of such a commission, but the "principle" of one has been accepted, Solana said at the news conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa.
Solana, accompanied by EU Middle East policy coordinator Miguel Angel Moratinos, arrived in Cairo early Wednesday on the third leg of a Middle East tour aimed at trying to help reduce tension in the region.
The two men came from Tel Aviv, having had talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat Tuesday – (AFP)
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