Cairo • The European Union joined Egypt, Jordan and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday in suggesting that Middle East peace talks move straight to the disputes at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

For the past few years, peace attempts such as the “road map” of 2003 have concentrated on small confidence-building measures, leaving aside bigger questions such as the status of Jersualem, the borders of a Palestinian state and refugees.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana also said a meeting of the Quartet of Middle East mediators in February would try to find ways to ensure progress towards peace before the summer. “What we would like to do with our friends is to know what is the endgame — once we have the endgame, to know really how we can get there,” Solana told a news conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit. “Endgame” is the diplomatic code for negotiating aspects of a lasting peace agreement between Israel and its neighbours.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said this week she would bring Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert together in informal talks to discuss how to set up a Palestinian state. A senior US administration official, however, has said the meeting would not forsake the road map, raising doubts about Washington’s commitment to accelerating the process.

The official, who was travelling with Rice during her Middle East tour that took her to Egypt and Israel among other countries, said the meeting was likely to take place in the Middle East within three to four weeks. Rice said the three-way summit would focus on the “political horizon” that would ultimately lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Aboul Gheit said the US top diplomat would return to the region in February. “It has different names with different partners. With the Europeans it’s “framework”. With the Egyptians it’s the “endgame”. With the Americans it’s “the political horizon”. But the concept is almost one,” Aboul Gheit told reporters.