ABU DHABI (AFP) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Emirati President Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan as part of her talks with Persian Gulf leaders on international efforts to revive the Middle East peace process.

Merkel said Germany, as the current European Union president, would throw its weight behind the reconciliation talks in Mecca between Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Hamas political supremo Khaled Meshaal.

"We will do everything in our power to ensure the talks are successful," Merkel said, adding the EU would stay in close contact with Saudi Arabia, which is hosting the meeting.

The Abbas-Meshaal talks in Islam's holiest city of Mecca are being held in a bid to settle an inter-factional conflict that has claimed 66 lives since January 25.

Merkel later told the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies in a speech on EU foreign policy that reaching a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is "absolutely central to bringing stability to the region". "This is simply because other conflicts in the region cannot be solved if this conflict is yet to be settled."

She said that working towards a two-state solution is the best way forward.

"This means two states where Israel would feel secure and protected against violence... and where the Palestinian people are given a state where they can prosper," she said.

Their meeting focused on "developments in the region, notably the Palestinian question, the situation in Iraq and Lebanon" as well as economic ties between Berlin and Abu Dhabi, the state news agency WAM reported.

Merkel briefed the leader of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on "the ideas and visions of Germany concerning the problems of the Middle East, starting with international efforts to relaunch the peace process," WAM said.

Sheikh Khalifa also called for a boost to economic ties between the UAE and Germany, whose two-way trade increased 25 percent last year to seven billion dollars, according to statistics published on Monday by Al-Bayan newspaper.