Peres returns for summit

Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, will be returning to Majorca this week to attend the fourth Formentor Forum. The Middle East peace process will dominate this week's summit, organised by the YPF Repsol Foundation, but will not be attended by the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat or Egyptian Prime Minister Hosni Mubarak who both travelled to Majorca last year, raising high hopes of a break through in the peace process, prompting Spanish prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar to join the summit. This year however, the forum of leading Mediterranean-basin representatives, will be looking to discuss the influence religion has on conflicts in the Middle East. Palestine's new National Security Council chief, Mohammed Dahalan, will be sharing the negotiating table with Peres, as will Jordan's Development Minister Bassem Awadallah with Spain's Foreign Minister, Ana Palacios taking the chair. Spanish deputy prime minister, Rodrigo Rato, will also be attending, so too will German Home Secretary, Otto Shily as developments in the Mediterranean with regards to immigration are always important to Germany, Portgual's ex-prime minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva and Tunisia's Minister for Culture, Abdelbaki Hermassi, along with a host of leading political, economic and cultural lights from Mediterranean countries. The theme for this year's summit is “Dialgue and Development” and the two-day meeting will be broken down into three working areas, politics, economics and cultures affecting the Mediterranean. The summit starts tomorrow afternoon with Saturday set aside for the Middle East peace process.