DOHA -- Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad ben Jassem al-Thani, whose country chairs the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), met with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in Paris on Sunday, an official report here said.

Sheikh Hamad told the state QNA news agency that he pressed Peres to ensure Israel respects agreements it signed with the Palestinians, who gained partial autonomy under the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords, even amid their 22-month uprising against military occupation. He also said it was necessary for Israel to "halt all its repressive acts taken by the Israeli forces against the Palestinian citizens, to alleviate the blockades imposed on Palestinian Authority zones and to start giving the Palestinians their legitimate rights, including that of establishing an independent state with Bait-ul-Moqaddas as its capital." Sheikh Hamad stressed there "would be no security in the Middle East without the restoration of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people."

There was no comment in the report from Peres, who earlier in the day left Israel for talks in France and the United States on relaunching the Middle East peace process and relieving the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territories.