German Chancellor Angela Merkel Monday urged Israel and Palestinian leaders to grasp the chance to restart peace talks.
Palestinian authority President Mahmoud Abbas must grasp the offer of talks from Israel and "push the peace process forward again," Merkel said at a joint press conference with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Merkel said she will make this point "unmistakably clear" when Abbas visits Berlin in early February.
Germany also want Israel to do more on stop building settlement to push this process, Merkel said.
Netanyahu said Israel was ready for peace talks, and hoped the Palestinians can show "equal readiness."
Attempts to renew peace negotiations have foundered with Netanyahu declaring a partial 10-month freeze on settlement building in the West Bank and Abbas insisting on a total moratorium on construction, reported by local media.
Germany and Israel held a joint cabinet meeting on Monday in Berlin for the first time, which was considered historic by both countries.
Germany only hold joint cabinet meeting with very few international partners, for example France and Poland. So this meeting underlines the strong ties between Germany and Israel forged in the wake of the Holocaust.
The meeting aims to strengthen the cooperation between two countries and to exchange ideas on issues of Iran and Israeli- Palestinian peace-process.
At noon, Netanyahu visited the Holocaust Memorial in the center of Berlin accompanied by Merkel. The first German-Israeli cabinet joint meeting was held in Jerusalem in 2008.