PARIS — France's foreign minister heads to the Middle East this weekend with an initiative aimed at bringing Israel and the Palestinians back to peace talks under an international framework amid growing regional instability. US-led efforts to broker peace for a two-state solution, talks collapsed in April 2014 and leaders on both sides have since been weakened politically. But with the region's crises worsening and Washington reassessing its options on US-Israel relations, France sees a narrow window to resume negotiations. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius will explore the prospects for talks with Arab League ministers in Cairo on Saturday and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in occupied Jerusalem on Sunday. “Everything points to inertia, but we believe that this inertia is deadly,” said a senior French diplomat. “We can no longer isolate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the regional context.” Paris hopes to persuade Arab states, the European Union and UN Security Council members to pressure both sides to make compromises neither wants to make alone. — Reuters