China offers to mediate 'peace' between Palestine, Israel

China's foreign minister told his Palestinian and Israeli counterparts his country is ready to help facilitate peace talks, state news agency Xinhua reported on Tuesday.

The separate phone calls between Foreign Minister Qin Gang and the Palestinian and the Israeli top diplomats comes amid recent moves by Beijing to position itself as a regional mediator.

Qin encouraged "steps to resume peace talks", and said that "China is ready to provide convenience for this", in a Monday phone call with Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, Xinhua reported in a summarisation.

And Qin told Palestinian foreign minister Riyad Al-Maliki that Beijing supports the resumption of talks as soon as possible, according to a Xinhua summary.

In both calls Qin emphasised China's push for peace talks on the basis of implementing a "two-state solution", Xinhua said.

China has been on a recent diplomatic offensive, brokering the restoration of ties in March between Iran and Saudi Arabia – rivals in a region where the United States for decades has been the main diplomatic powerbroker.

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been stalled since 2014, amid continued settlement activity and deadly Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the occupied territories.