Obama vows to get ME talks back on track

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LONDON, June 2 (AFP): President Barack Obama voiced confidence Tuesday that the United States can help get serious Middle East peace talks back on track, as he prepared for his maiden trip to the region.
In an interview with the BBC before heading to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Europe, the US leader added that he hoped for progress in direct talks with Iran by the end of this year.
More broadly, he said a keynote speech in Cairo would aim to broach relations between the West and the Muslim world, and to overcome some mutual misapprehensions eight years after the September 11 attacks.
"No one speech is going to solve every problem," he said, but added his trip was "an opportunity for us to get both sides to listen to each other a little bit more and then hopefully learn something."
On Middle East peace talks, he said the United States believes it is "going to be able to get serious negotiations back on track" between Israel and the Palestinians.
"Not only is it in the interest of the Palestinian people to have a state, it's in the interest of the Israeli people to stabilise the situation there," he added.