Mediterranean union launched with Mideast peace hopes

PARIS  - French President Nicolas Sarkozy and more than 40 leaders on Sunday launched a new Union for the Mediterranean, hoping to inject momentum in Middle East peace efforts.

The new forum brings together the 27 countries of the European Union with states from north Africa, the Balkans and Arab nations with Israel to foster cooperation in one of the world’s most volatile regions.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad scored a major comeback to the international stage after years of isolation, taking his seat alongside Arab leaders at the same table as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Sarkozy said Arab states had made a “gesture of peace” by attending the inaugural summit of the Union for the Mediterranean and pledged Europe would “build peace in the Mediterranean, just as yesterday we built peace in Europe.”

The French president, who championed the idea of new grouping during his election campaign last year, said leaders must “learn to love each other in the Mediterranean, instead of continuing to hate and wage war.”