British Foreign Secretary Mr Jack Straw said ahead of Middle East talks today that it was vital to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict regardless of the Iraq crisis.
Palestinian leaders are taking part in the London conference with international mediators via videolink because Israel refused to let them leave the occupied territories after suicide bombings that killed 22 people in Tel Aviv last week.
"It's no substitute for a face-to-face conference, but it will still, I believe, be very useful," Mr Straw told BBC radio.
Participants in the talks on Palestinian reform include members of the "quartet" of Middle East mediators - the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia - along with officials from Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Mr Straw said Middle East peace efforts must be pursued for their own sake, not because they might feed into the unfolding crisis over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
"Even if the Iraq crisis was solved tomorrow we would still be under a huge obligation to act, and act properly, with respect to this terrible long-running conflict for Palestine," he said.
The London conference is an attempt to keep up the momentum on a "road map" to peace, envisaging the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005, that the quartet plans to present to the parties after the Israeli general election on January 28th.
In September, British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair called for talks on a final Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement to resume by the end of the year. Israel, with US backing, dismissed that idea.