Israeli President Shimon Peres on Wednesday said he was "hopeful" that peace talks with Palestinians will lead to a two-state solution and bring prosperity to the Middle East.
"As an Israeli I am now very hopeful because the peace process was renewed between the Palestinians and ourselves," he told reporters on a visit to Lithuania, which holds the rotating EU presidency.
Peres spoke after the start of talks in Washington on Monday and Tuesday put an end to a three-year hiatus.
He said the talks had "a clear purpose" to have "a Jewish state by the name of Israel and an Arab state by the name of Palestine not fighting each other but living together in friendship and cooperation".
"There is no alternative to peace, there is no sense to go to war," he said in the capital Vilnius.
"Terror doesn't have a message, terror cannot bake bread and cannot offer fresh air to breathe. It's costly, it's useless, it doesn't produce anything."
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