(LJUBLJANA) - The European Union is ready to get involved again in the Mideast peace process if the current US-led drive fails to make progress, the EU's current president, Slovenia, said Wednesday.

Speaking after meeting the Palestinian information minister, Riyadh al-Maliki, here, Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel said the EU was ready to resume a key role if the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, set in motion in Annapolis last year, grind to a halt.

The Middle East diplomatic Quartet, comprising the European Union, Russia, the United States and United Nations, had "stepped back to see what can be achieved through the agreement reached in Annapolis," Rupel told a news conference here.

"But if there is no progress, the EU will involve itself in the process again, as far as it can."

The 27-nation bloc would be watching closely the current Middle East visit by US President George W. Bush, Rupel said.

Bush arrived in Israel on Wednesday at the start of a tour aimed at forging Middle East peace.

"I can't imagine that (the peace process) won't be discussed" at the upcoming meeting of the EU's council for general affairs and external relations on January 28, he said.

That meeting will be chaired by Slovenia, which took over the EU's rotating presidency on January 1.

Rupel said that "a new meeting of the international Quartet", led by former British prime minister Tony Blair, might also be necessary after Bush's visit.

Palestinian information minister al-Maliki said he hoped the current peace talks would result in an accord being reached during Slovenia's EU presidency, which runs until the end of June.

"We want to show that we are ready to offer all kinds of support to all parties to make the negotiation process successful ... and to emphasise that Europe can play an important role," al-Maliki said.

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