BRUSSELS - EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson is to travel to the Middle East Wednesday for three days of talks with senior ministers, officials and business chiefs, the European Union's executive arm said.
Mandelson is to stress "the EU's readiness to help strengthen trading links" in and with the volatile region as a way of contributing to stability there.
He is scheduled to meet with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei, Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Trade and Industry Minister Ehud Olmert and Jordanian Industry and Trade Minister Sharif Ali Zu'Bi.
"The European Union has stood with the Israelis and the Palestinians in the search for peace, offering concrete support through its major economic assistance programmes," he said in a statement.
"We need now to consider how we can go further and contribute in a different way to consolidating peace," he added.
Mandelson is also due to deliver a lecture at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on Thursday about EU trade policy and the Middle East and to attend the World Economic Forum in Jordan on Saturday.
05/18/2005 12:23 GMT