PARIS: Israel and the Palestinians “have never been this close” to a peace deal, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said yesterday as the search for Middle East peace took center stage at a Mediterranean summit.

The Paris summit also brought new impetus to the peace process between Syria and Israel, as Olmert and Syrian President Bashar Assad held indirect talks through Turkey.

Olmert and Arab leaders were among the more than 40 heads of state and government meeting in Paris to launch a new Union for the Mediterranean, aimed at boosting cooperation in one of the world’s most volatile regions.

Though Israelis and Palestinians have met regularly since the relaunch of the peace process last November, talks have stalled over the issue of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

But Olmert insisted following a meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, hosted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, that the two sides “have never been as close to an accord as we are today.”

According to a source close to the prime minister, Olmert promised Abbas the release of a new group of Palestinian prisoners as “a gesture” of good will. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said that in a one-on-one meeting, Abbas brought up the issue of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Regev said Olmert “agreed in principle” to a release as a “gesture” to Abbas.

Olmert held talks in Paris with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who then met Bashar, according to an Israeli diplomatic source.

After meeting with Bashar, Erdogan said he held out much hope of a breakthrough toward face-to-face peace negotiations between Syria and Israel. “Our hopes are very high. Our determination is solid and we will continue,” Erdogan told reporters. “This requires caution.”

Both Olmert and Abbas called on Sarkozy, as president of France, holder of the European Union presidency and host of the new Mediterranean union, to take a front-seat role in steering peace negotiations. Abbas said that Sarkozy’s “friendship” with both Israelis and Palestinians would enable him “to play an important role to help the peace process succeed in a few months.”

The French leader thanked Arab states for “making a gesture of peace” by attending despite historic tensions with Israel, while Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak urged Israelis and Palestinians to step up their drive for peace.

On a third diplomatic front, Sarkozy Saturday hosted landmark talks between Bashar and Lebanon’s President Michel Suleiman, whose election in May ended a drawn-out political crisis in Lebanon.

Both countries later announced their decision to establish diplomatic relations, a first since their independence from colonial rule.

Syria withdrew its troops in 2005 in the aftermath of the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, for which it was widely blamed.