The eleven Ministers representing the eleven member countries of the Mediterranean closed their meeting in Alicante on Saturday with some "specific proposals" aimed at improving the situation over the peace talks in the Middle East, which should involve all sides "seeking a just, global and lasting solution."

The eleven ministers and the Libyan Foreign Affairs minister, who had been invited as an observer, all signed a document entitled 'The Alicante Declaration on the Middle East,' which Spanish Foreign Affairs minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, described as "a very strong document, full of new ideas and the result of an enormous political effort."

The document will now be sent to 'The Quartet', that is composed of representatives from the European Union, the United States, the Russian Federation and the United Nations, and Mr Moratinos added that it contained "the two state solution, an agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians that results in a viable Palestinian state that is sovereign and independent living at peace with Israel inside frontiers established in 1967."  .