Abbas calls for Mideast peace conference 'immediately'

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas called for an international conference to be held "immediately" to negotiate a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "An international conference should be summoned immediately, in which direct negotiations take place, on the basis of international UN resolutions and signed agreements," Abbas said in a speech at the Nobel Institute in Oslo. "The international group, whether it is the Quartet (the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations), or any other international framework, would play the role of the broker and arbitrator at the same time," he added. "I believe that to resolve the conflict, both sides should not be left alone with this imbalance of occupier and occupied," Abbas said. The Palestinian leader, currently on a tour of Europe, encouraged the international community to "move fast" to secure a negotiated settlement to the conflict and stop a unilateral solution being imposed by acting Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert.