Egypt president backs French proposal for Mideast talks

Egypt's president on Tuesday declared his support for a French proposal to hold a Mideast peace conference later this year, citing it along with U.S. efforts, an Arab peace plan first floated in 2000 and the international Mideast peace quartet as possible avenues to an Israeli-Palestinian settlement.

President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi also called on Israel and the Palestinians to seize what he described as a "realistic" and "great" opportunity to reach a peaceful settlement to their decades-old conflict, saying they need look no farther than the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty to see the positive outcome of peacemaking.