An international Mideast conference got under way in Berlin on Tuesday with a pledge to help Palestinians and Israelis resolve their conflict, DPA reported. "We cannot relieve the parties of their task of finding a compromise," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in his opening address. "But we can, and we want, to help them." German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the road map peace plan had made progress but practical implementation was proving more complex. "Such a solution involves compromise, which can be painful, " she said. Foreign ministers from around 20 countries are taking part in the conference, which is intended to help Palestinians prepare for the day they take on responsibility for their own state. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa and European Union Mideast envoy Tony Blair were also present. Syria did not send a delegation. Following the conference, Rice, Lavrov and Blair were to join EU foreign policy Chief Javier Solana and a representative of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at a meeting of the Mideast Quartet of mediators. The gathering in the German capital comes in the wake of a major donors' conference in Paris in December, which raised U.S. $7.4 billion in aid for the cash-starved Palestinians.
